An optional level sync I could live with

[dscount]

Logic does not work.

 

Point is that more reasons to not have it optional than to make it.

 

Really? List them! I've listed mine in several threads you have populated your PRO-SYNC spam/fan boy.

 

You do NOT have more reasons to be PRO-SYNC. Even the straw polls was somewhat split down the middle. That alone to me would signal that "Houston - we have a problem" on Level-Sync.

 

Sorry.. I can't stand GW2 Level Sync and that's why I don't play GW2 (Even with it being "Free" to play and no Sub). The dumbing down of level sync is just a waste of time. Bioware has NOT done the correct amount of QA and based on the NYCC Q&A sessions it sounds like on OCT 20th we will start seeing all kinds of "Boss XYZ is unbeatable since he is 10 levels above Level Sync"... expect that one to be a COMMON topic in the forums. Then I want to see you "PRO-SYNC" fan boys show up and go "Its a GOOD IDEA" to still have this.... whatever.

[Princess_Chibi]

There is a fairness issue that level-sync may solve, but it doesn't have to do with regular content. It's with event content.

 

There are (crrently) 3 major repeating events - Bounty Hunter Week, Rakghoul Outbreak, and Return of the Gree. Two fo these are intended for anyone from 15+ (with their own starship) to participate in - Bounty Week and Rakghoul Outbreak. Each has a "fairness" issue.

 

The Bounty Hunter Week one is the one that generates teh question: "why should I have to fight htrough trash mobs on Coruscant to get to the bounty targets?" Well, why shouldn't you? Let's take a look at an L50 - they could go to Voss and have to deal wtih the mobs there, or go to Coruscant (or Ord Mantell) and not. The targets are the same difficulty either way, but on Voss they can't (completely) ignore the unrelated mobs, but on Coruscant they can. The level 60, of course, can ignore both. (This also shades over into the game design issues I noted earlier).

 

The Ralghoul event doesn't have that issue, since they instance the content off from the planet, and all the trash mobs are (nominally) at-level for the participant. The thing is, an L60 can find a group for the H4 at the end (and for the Operations Boss instance) more or less at will, because they're at level cap. Anyone who isn't at level cap has a devil of a time finding groups, because even with the bolster, the lower level folks are missing the full panoply of abilities the Ops Boss is balanced against (particularly bad for healers, but tanks don't get all their defensive CDs until level cap); and for the Heroic, you have to be within a level or two of everyone else you group with, meaning you have a LOT smaller section of the non-level-capped population that you can actually group with. (Plus, the way they do the instancing of mobs is a grotty hack, but it's not the only place they use that grotty hack)

 

That's a niche argument at best. Bounties are periodic as are all other events. You don't institute a new game mechanic system (especially one a number of people dislike) even if benefits were provided during the brief period events are happening. That screws half the player base during the other ~30+ weeks of the year when there are no events running.

 

Don't you understand yet? The more you try to justify forcing sync on others, the less it holds up to examination. The reasoning for it was piss poor to begin with, now it's a bad idea with no adequate justification behind it. Read the other threads as well as this one; pro-mandatory players are losing support as more people are starting to understand this change offers no benefits to a large number of players (at least 45-50% based on straw poll).

 

Here's the thing to realize about games and balance changes. Unless there is a CLEAR AND OVERWHELMING benefit to proceeding with a change, it shouldn't be done. It doesn't fix world bosses, it doesn't reward at least half the players that would be forced to sync, it doesn't give us more credits/mats than we already receive.

 

In short, it was a weak excuse attempt to fix world boss-snagging, and even that weak argument has been shot to pieces.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[DarthSabreth]

The Blizzard Devs had many changes that they thought would work out well despite the fact the a very vast majority of players said they could not stand them. they didn't listen... they lost a large sum of their player base.

 

the difference between WOW and SWTOR is they can soak up the loss and they still have millions playing even though they lost millions. BW cant afford a large drop in the player base. if they lost even a quarter of the subs EA would be calling for action because they are extremely money hungry. EA would be demanding resignations to re-coop its loss in revenue.

 

the .001% may be overjoyed with the changes but more than .001% make up the whole.

[BaronV]

For the record, I'm pro-forced-sync.

 

Its obvious even if you hadn't stated it explicitly. You are seeking to take everything away from people unless they play the game in the exact way you want them to.

 

BTW your so called optional is not optional at all. It is no different from the ME3 reject "option"

Edited October 11, 2015 by BaronV

[Sarrkoth]

The Blizzard Devs had many changes that they thought would work out well despite the fact the a very vast majority of players said they could not stand them. they didn't listen... they lost a large sum of their player base.

 

the difference between WOW and SWTOR is they can soak up the loss and they still have millions playing even though they lost millions. BW cant afford a large drop in the player base. if they lost even a quarter of the subs EA would be calling for action because they are extremely money hungry. EA would be demanding resignations to re-coop its loss in revenue.

 

the .001% may be overjoyed with the changes but more than .001% make up the whole.

 

I like how you're implying only .001% are for the level sync. Hell, there's a poll thread in this very forum that proves that isn't true.

[Juromaro]

Plays RPG game...doesn't want to worry about stats or gear...thinks this is a good change for the game.

 

Have you ever played an RPG before? Do you understand the very basic underpinnings of every RPG game ever made? Or are these things you also don't care about? I'm just so curious.

 

What would Final Fantasy 7 have been like with you around? No materia, no equippable gear, no levels, just pure story? It's cool though because Sephiroth would have been level-synced to Cloud's level 1 at the start, right?

 

To answer your question with another question, What would FFX or even the upcoming FFXV be like if they stuck to the "glorified" additions that came with 7? It needed to evolve.

 

And if an RPG doesn't evolve we'd still be playing FF6, games have to try to innovate, sure that'll make "diehards" mad and flip tables screaming to high hrothgar , but in order for games to evolve they need to take steps to change, same goes for MMO's, if an MMO never tried to innovate we'd be stuck playing MazeWar right now.

 

But I could be wrong, you might enjoy playing an RPG where your Avatar is blocky and can't talk.

[Princess_Chibi]

To answer your question with another question, What would FFX or even the upcoming FFXV be like if they stuck to the "glorified" additions that came with 7? It needed to evolve.

 

And if an RPG doesn't evolve we'd still be playing FF6, games have to try to innovate, sure that'll make "diehards" mad and flip tables screaming to high hrothgar , but in order for games to evolve they need to take steps to change, same goes for MMO's, if an MMO never tried to innovate we'd be stuck playing MazeWar right now.

 

But I could be wrong, you might enjoy playing an RPG where your Avatar is blocky and can't talk.

 

While you're busy quoting top-shelf products as proof of evolution, try and remember the pain and suffering of FF11 and FF12... Those were not improvements on 7; Square didn't learn their lesson to stay within the relative realm of a winning formula. Innovation is good, but not when a large chunk of your player base disagrees with your motivations.

[-Spc]

You're right, it's too late right now to get it right and make it optional for the launch of 4.0... they could always fix it later.

 

Which is why I'll check back every so often to see if they've made it optional.

Not really, it's very simple to create a system which removes debuff, they did the same with 12x xp, some people did not want it and it is optional.

[djmtott]

For all we know, the way they're changing the coding of the game for LevelSync completely changes things and making it an option is not feasible. It could be an issue of the developers not wanting to maintain different versions of the basic tenets of the game.

 

But I did think of this before, making an optional mode that had to be toggled with a terminal at the Fleets. Where nothing would agro you, but you'd be unable to do pretty much anything that would be easier to do without LevelSync.

[Princess_Chibi]

For all we know, the way they're changing the coding of the game for LevelSync completely changes things and making it an option is not feasible. It could be an issue of the developers not wanting to maintain different versions of the basic tenets of the game.

 

But I did think of this before, making an optional mode that had to be toggled with a terminal at the Fleets. Where nothing would agro you, but you'd be unable to do pretty much anything that would be easier to do without LevelSync.

 

For all we know, they're not changing the coding of the game of LevelSync completely changing things and making it an option that is feasible....

 

You don't know, so you can't use that argument to justify supporting Level sync. For the same reason, no one else knows Bioware's plans and can use that to state opposing the change.

[Juromaro]

For all we know, they're not changing the coding of the game of LevelSync completely changing things and making it an option that is feasible....

 

You don't know, so you can't use that argument to justify supporting Level sync. For the same reason, no one else knows Bioware's plans and can use that to state opposing the change.

 

 

Can I marry you?

[djmtott]

For all we know, they're not changing the coding of the game of LevelSync completely changing things and making it an option that is feasible....

 

You don't know, so you can't use that argument to justify supporting Level sync. For the same reason, no one else knows Bioware's plans and can use that to state opposing the change.

It's a thought, not an argument.

[Tahra]

For all we know, the way they're changing the coding of the game for LevelSync completely changes things and making it an option is not feasible. It could be an issue of the developers not wanting to maintain different versions of the basic tenets of the game.

 

But I did think of this before, making an optional mode that had to be toggled with a terminal at the Fleets. Where nothing would agro you, but you'd be unable to do pretty much anything that would be easier to do without LevelSync.

 

1 instance (or more if needed because of player numbers of course) of a planet for level synced people.

1 instance (or more ...) of a planet for people who are NOT level synced.

 

The first option would have rewards, credits, xp and such scaled to the player's real level

The second option would have rewards, credits, xp and such based on the level of the planet's missions.

 

Such a simple solution.

No high level OP people to bother the poor synced people or steal their world boss. No big rewards for non synced people because they have it easier. Tadaaaaa.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Tahra

[FerkWork]

1 instance (or more if needed because of player numbers of course) of a planet for level synced people.

1 instance (or more ...) of a planet for people who are NOT level synced.

 

The first option would have rewards, credits, xp and such scaled to the player's real level

The second option would have rewards, credits, xp and such based on the level of the planet's missions.

 

Such a simple solution.

No high level OP people to bother the poor synced people or steal their world boss. No big rewards for non synced people because they have it easier. Tadaaaaa.

 

Except people would just go do non-level Synch and farm heroics and farm and farm and we still have one of the biggest problems now. People making 600k per hour on one Heroic on Correilla. But Yavin! Yes Yavin needs a hammer Nerf but there there is at least competitors. With the 50 Daily and Heroics there is none. The main issue is people farming them at an abnormal rate driving inflation up and up as the amounts that were given out was originally the same time consuming as Rishi and Yavin.

 

Mandatory level-Synch is fine as it removes the farm of gather up all the adds AOE down and reset every 2 minutes. Now you actually have to spend time not pulling all mobs and takes you 10-15 minutes now decreasing farming rates by 80%.

 

If there was an optional it would have to be this:

 

Synch: Level Appropriate Rewards and Money

Not-Synch: You get the Cosmetic Gear which can be vendored for 1 credit and you get 100 credits for completion, all mobs drop 1 credit, mat nodes are severely limited, and WB doesn't count for Weekly. You can still get any chievio you want there.

 

As an aside, Reset button abuse for credits should be looked into and change Slicing nodes to drop Slicing Components not credits. Too much inflation IMHO.

[IanArgent]

1 instance (or more if needed because of player numbers of course) of a planet for level synced people.

1 instance (or more ...) of a planet for people who are NOT level synced.

 

The first option would have rewards, credits, xp and such scaled to the player's real level

The second option would have rewards, credits, xp and such based on the level of the planet's missions.

 

Such a simple solution.

No high level OP people to bother the poor synced people or steal their world boss. No big rewards for non synced people because they have it easier. Tadaaaaa.

 

That would be easier. If extra instances were easy. We have plenty of evidence to suggest they aren't. If I thought spinning up an extra instance per planet was a viable solution, I'd have started with that, and it would have gotten rid of a bunch of gnarly corner cases.

Edited October 11, 2015 by IanArgent

[DarthSabreth]

I like how you're implying only .001% are for the level sync. Hell, there's a poll thread in this very forum that proves that isn't true.

 

the thing with polls is if only a small percentage of people actually vote in those polls then they aren't an accurate assessment of what people feel. unless everyone whom plays participates in those polls they aren't that very reliable. even BW says only a small percentage of players visit their forums. before this lvl sync was ever announced you really didn't hear anyone else clamoring to have their toons nerfed to the lvl of the planet you were on.

 

Now folks will have to spam general just to get the weeklies done on the old planets when they can just get them done right away right now. good luck getting groups together on voss if you don't have the rep yet. good luck getting into that heroic in BH for the weekly.

[IanArgent]

the thing with polls is if only a small percentage of people actually vote in those polls then they aren't an accurate assessment of what people feel. unless everyone whom plays participates in those polls they aren't that very reliable. even BW says only a small percentage of players visit their forums. before this lvl sync was ever announced you really didn't hear anyone else clamoring to have their toons nerfed to the lvl of the planet you were on.

 

Now folks will have to spam general just to get the weeklies done on the old planets when they can just get them done right away right now. good luck getting groups together on voss if you don't have the rep yet. good luck getting into that heroic in BH for the weekly.

 

The heroics are all being rebalanced to 2+ for power level, and a higher-level character under (the misnamed) level sync is still going to be notably more powerful than an on-level character; since they will still have all their powers, passives, and utilities, and only their HP and DSP/HPS are being synced, not their accuracy or crit chance/damage. Given that most heroic 2+ can already be soloed at planetary max level with due caution in play and use of all abilities, I'm not that worried.

[Max_Killjoy]

Except people would just go do non-level Synch and farm heroics and farm and farm and we still have one of the biggest problems now. People making 600k per hour on one Heroic on Correilla. But Yavin! Yes Yavin needs a hammer Nerf but there there is at least competitors. With the 50 Daily and Heroics there is none. The main issue is people farming them at an abnormal rate driving inflation up and up as the amounts that were given out was originally the same time consuming as Rishi and Yavin.

 

Mandatory level-Synch is fine as it removes the farm of gather up all the adds AOE down and reset every 2 minutes. Now you actually have to spend time not pulling all mobs and takes you 10-15 minutes now decreasing farming rates by 80%.

 

Wait, you think this is about people making "too many" credits "too quickly"?

 

So, we're right back to way too much concern over how other people play the game and get their enjoyment.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[IanArgent]

Wait, you think this is about people making "too many" credits "too quickly"?

 

Like I said, we're right back to way too much concern over how other people play the game and get their enjoyment.

 

I think it's part of it - though I don't really think the inflation is going to be slowed that much by this. Inflation hurts the non-subs, because of the escrow limits

[Droidist]

Going back to over level and explore old content is a HUGE part of many MMO's, in fact, some devs encourage it. I think they will have a toggle, which is the way I want it. What is the point of leveling, if everything is still a challenge, even the stuff that you did when you were lower level. The whole idea doesn't fit with gaming theory even where by your character becomes more powerful if you really don't become more powerful??

 

In fact, many solo players experience group parts of the game by over leveling, and I can't believe they would just tell those people to "stick it, and please leave our game".

 

So toggle is the only way.

[annabethchase]

Yes, and on many missions, etc, you'd need to lose your progress if you switched, just to be certain to avoid gaming the system.

 

I mean, personally, I don't care at all if someone does the mission on unsynced, switches, and then gets the synced "reward". Hell, I don't care if the "rewards" are different at all. But evidently, the "fairness" of things that other people get in the game really gets the furnace going for some players.

 

In an MMO, if it's not fair and equitable, it's not right. Why should some players play as intended and slowly earn 3.0 ops gear while others got it by being invited to a group and walking in to a treasure chest? That was obviously considered an exploit, especially when done repeatedly. So I would also consider it an exploit to go into a bunch of non-level synced heroics clear them, and then get the synced rewards.

 

As far as I can tell right now, the level synced heroics are the key reward in the game in 4.0. Building a huge alliance sounds like the grand prize.

[Max_Killjoy]

In an MMO, if it's not fair and equitable, it's not right. Why should some players play as intended and slowly earn 3.0 ops gear while others got it by being invited to a group and walking in to a treasure chest? That was obviously considered an exploit, especially when done repeatedly. So I would also consider it an exploit to go into a bunch of non-level synced heroics clear them, and then get the synced rewards.

 

As far as I can tell right now, the level synced heroics are the key reward in the game in 4.0. Building a huge alliance sounds like the grand prize.

 

Oh for pete's sake, now it's sunk to "but playing unsynced would be an exploit!"

 

Why on earth should I care one bit about how other people get their gear, or get their "alliance", or get their credits?

 

Am I really supposed to be outraged over some sort of unfairness, or jealous, or something?

Edited October 11, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[annabethchase]

I like how you're implying only .001% are for the level sync. Hell, there's a poll thread in this very forum that proves that isn't true.

 

I'm for the level sync and from what I've read on how many posters use this board I represent significantly more than .001% by myself.

[annabethchase]

Oh for pete's sake, now it's sunk to "but but but playing unsynced would be an exploit!"

 

 

If Bioware says syncing is needed, then anything to get around it is exploiting. I really do wonder what will happen if this bugs and some areas don't sync properly.

[Max_Killjoy]

If Bioware says syncing is needed, then anything to get around it is exploiting. I really do wonder what will happen if this bugs and some areas don't sync properly.

 

As edited above (more detail, trying to be a bit more civil), I just do not care how other people get their stuff in an MMO. It's meaningless. I'm just never going to be outraged or jealous or offended because someone got their pixel-armor or e-coins more or less easily. It simply doesn't matter.

 

Whatever they do, doesn't -- in any way -- affect whether I'm having fun or not, unless they literally come running over and poach something I'm working on.