Leveling too fast

[Jedi_riches]

I think that side and heroic mission xp need adjusting at least.

 

I have not tried just class and Planetary yet as I was planning on doing every quest but by doing so I hit level 50 with my Warrior yesterday while still doing my class missions on Alderran.

[VanorDM]

I say divorce the story line from the level cap.

 

In most way it is. Your level really has no bearing on where you are at in the story any longer. My Jedi hit lvl 65 at the end of Forged Alliance III, that means I have all the rest of Shadows of Revan and KotFE to do yet.

 

Right now the only effect leveling really had, is to unlock skills you can use. The valina story is pretty much completely divorced from your level once you reach your faction's capital. It's not much different then The Secret World really, in that MMO there's no 'level' all though there was a way to gate skills and items. So there were two forms of progress, story progress and gear level.

 

But you can't really level too fast in SWTOR now, not really. Because level sync will keep the content on any given planet at least sorta relevant, or at least more so than a lvl 65 person doing lvl 30 content.

Edited November 9, 2015 by VanorDM

[EnkiduNineEight]

In most way it is. Your level really has no bearing on where you are at in the story any longer. My Jedi hit lvl 65 at the end of Forged Alliance III, that means I have all the rest of Shadows of Revan and KotFE to do yet.

 

Right now the only effect leveling really had, is to unlock skills you can use. The valina story is pretty much completely divorced from your level once you reach your faction's capital. It's not much different then The Secret World really, in that MMO there's no 'level' all though there was a way to gate skills and items. So there were two forms of progress, story progress and gear level.

 

But you can't really level too fast in SWTOR now, not really. Because level sync will keep the content on any given planet at least sorta relevant, or at least more so than a lvl 65 person doing lvl 30 content.

 

You are missing the point. They provide so much experience from doing just Class Quests etc because they decided that the story has to be tied to being at least a certain level before continuing on. This was because they wanted you to experience other content they created as well and planned on players chapters being achieved as they also did planetary sidquests, explored etc.

 

over time they have removed all of that, BUT they keep making the storyline continue from a certain level.

 

I'm saying, that the story shouldn't have any level tied to it at all and in fact, you should be able to cap out the STORY at a far earlier 'level' because your level is unimportant to story. Your level is now inconsequential to the story as a whole... so no need to tie it to level. This allows them to have everything _after_ the 'soft level cap' (EG the maximum level you could reach by doing the story alone) be more MMO focused.

 

This means the story focused players get what they want. The MMO focused players get what they want, and BioWare nolonger has to make ALL the game through cap level mouthbreathfacerollOMGIDONTWANTTOWORKTOPLAYAGAME easy to satisfy people who want only the story.

 

Example:

Lower ALL the exp gains from story missions etc so that the very highest level you could achieve by doing them (including KotFE stuff) to 35. 'Rebalance' all the story missions so they can be doable by someone who is in that progression. Give players ALL the equipment upgrades and companion upgrades and everything they might possibly need to make the game faceroll easy for the story portion to make the 'casuals' as they are now defined 'happy'.

 

Players who want JUST bioware patented super-wonderful story! Single Player Experience can have it.. Its JUST like it is now, it just doesn't require you to get to level 60+ at any point to finish it off. You get everything you need from doing the quests to advance you to the next part of the quest and it will be super simple because 'CASUAL!'. And that super simple aspect caps at alevel that's @ half the currentmax level, because.. who cares, level and RPG is obviously unimportant its STORY.

 

Meaning everything after that 'soft cap' is the MMO content, not tied to BioWares patented Super Special Storytelling. Once you cap at the 'Story' end (level 35) you can choose to continue on and the game gets 'harder' because bioWare no longer pets your hand and tells you that you are a special snowflake and gives you everything and instead you have to start paying attention and playing the game to succeed in it. OR you can chose to go do story again.

 

The point is, BioWare continues to tie Story Chapters to a level of achievement in the game (max level/prior level cap) and by so doing they have to continue making the game super easy for 'casuals' so they can get to that point to continue their story, degrading the game for anyone who wants RPG elements and progression.

 

Its a compromise deal that allows them to keep everything in the game as it is excepting just rebalancing the Story missions so that you can complete your story long before you reach level cap. The 'story' stuff becomes like an extended tutorial in a way, and once you're done you can either wait for more story or you can learn to play an MMO.

[VanorDM]

This allows them to have everything _after_ the 'soft level cap' (EG the maximum level you could reach by doing the story alone) be more MMO focused.

 

Your whole post basically boils down to "I don't like what they're doing, and I want them to do something else" Because your level has nothing to do with what kind of content you do really.

 

I agree that level doesn't need to be tied to the story line. But it's well established in every MMO I've ever played, that you can reach level cap by playing the solo based PvE content. Given Bioware's focus on solo based PvE content, why would they change how leveling works?

 

It's not like they'd suddenly add 6 new ops and 10 new FP's in, because they didn't have people level up through story missions.

 

Myself I'd actually prefer it that they level the level cap at 65 and just keep adding new content. Myself I don't need a bigger number along side my characters name to make me feel like I'm progressing.

Edited November 9, 2015 by VanorDM

[cyrusramsey]

While I think there was some repetition previously, I felt like there was enough to do that I was able to make a lot of choices about how I leveled. That kept the game fresh for me across multiple playthroughs. (It helps that I like basically everything--PvP, space missions, FPs, Heroics, whatever--except maybe seeker missions.) Even if I ended up repeating some content, enough time had passed by the time I did that I didn't mind it. The fact that leveling took a while contributed to that, because if it takes a few weeks to finish the class story, the low-level missions won't feel as repetitive when you return to them.

 

Maybe it's a the-journey-is-the-destination thing for me and other people, whereas others like something else.

 

I get why someone might prefer the new system, but I don't understand why the existing XP-buff-with-items system didn't already address the grind concerns of those who like faster leveling. Having said that, I don't really care if it stays as is if they introduce an item to slow XP gain. It might still be a problem for new players who are less likely to go looking for an item like that and more likely to be overwhelmed with having so many abilities so quickly, but maybe since new players won't be used to something else, they won't really notice it.

 

I think what it comes down to is that I level a lot. I've created well over 200 characters since I started playing and while I have a little over 20 lvl65s for endgame purposes, only about 50 of those created characters remain. I've also created 5 more just in the last few weeks.

 

Flashpoints tend to be my favorite activity in the game, I will sometimes level characters with only those. Now disregarding the fact that leveling queues (on my server at least) were insanely slow even for tanks and healers before the change and that the choice was between waiting for hours or grinding KDY, if I did go the 'regular' FP route, I often had to still play the same one 3, 4, 5 times before finally getting another.

 

Other characters I will level via class story. Now I get to choose whether I want to add planetary story or heroics or even the occasional FP to that mix to keep it fresh. I think it's absolutely fantastic.

 

I'd barely leveled at all anymore since 12xp, since that made only one method realistically viable, really found the fun again in creating an interesting new character and seeing where they take me. Had been concerned about the expansion, but I barely even touched any of the new content yet, the changes in leveling are what made the game for me.

[Dustychild]

Yeah my new bounty hunter on a new server is level 32 and just finished Balmorra. Thats a level 16-18 world and I am just now headed to Nar.

[ShadesofNight]

I completely agree with the OP, it's levelling way too fast for my taste. By the same token I also understand that others prefer it that way. Hence the OP wasn't asking for the whole game to be changed.

 

See it's very important to note that the OP suggests an ITEM to lower your XP gain like the... I think it was called 'White Acute' item which previously turned off 12XP. If we had an item like that to cut XP gain so those of us who want to happily do every quest available without having our levels get out of control can do so.

 

Seriously, what's the harm in something like that? It affects no one but the player using it.

[Jedi_riches]

What is the levelling like if you only do the purple missions? does this keep you on level for the game or is it still OP.

 

If it is the case that purple missions is all you need then its the additional quests and heroic missions that need to get a possible xp nerf.

[JadeBalfour]

What is the levelling like if you only do the purple missions? does this keep you on level for the game or is it still OP.

 

If it is the case that purple missions is all you need then its the additional quests and heroic missions that need to get a possible xp nerf.

 

I've been doing just the class and Planet Arc missions and they've kept me pretty much on level.

[Jedi_riches]

I've been doing just the class and Planet Arc missions and they've kept me pretty much on level.

 

In that case, I know I have done everything and hit 50 on Alderran so its a clear case of needing to tone down the xp gained on all the other quests as its obviously these quests that gained me 18+ levels over the planet level.

[cyrusramsey]

I completely agree with the OP, it's levelling way too fast for my taste. By the same token I also understand that others prefer it that way. Hence the OP wasn't asking for the whole game to be changed.

 

See it's very important to note that the OP suggests an ITEM to lower your XP gain like the... I think it was called 'White Acute' item which previously turned off 12XP. If we had an item like that to cut XP gain so those of us who want to happily do every quest available without having our levels get out of control can do so.

 

Seriously, what's the harm in something like that? It affects no one but the player using it.

 

I would have no problem at all with there being an item of sorts that would limit XP. The main problem I have now is that people are latching on to this discussion and I keep reading "too much/fast" and I am afraid that after perfectly hitting the sweet spot, as far as I'm concerned, BW will keep reading "too much XP" everywhere and will bring it back so far that, now that I've had some time to get used to this, I will no longer want to keep playing.

Edited November 10, 2015 by cyrusramsey

[Wagerbane]

The system works great and our character reach max level first and then our character goes into same level when you visit the planet level. How cool and the reason is everyone make credits doing heroics weekly on every planet. The old system wont let your 60 level character earn nothing on lower level planets. New system have a heroics mission computer at star port now is easy to setup a mission without wright down on paper or no need to take notes to get back with the mission. Fast level is just a benefit in the game and did heard you can turn it off feature from fleet station. Edited November 10, 2015 by Wagerbane

[IAAIAO]

It's not supposed to be like that. Back in the days, we used to level at the same rate as the planet or maybe 3 to 5 levels above if you are an over achiever. Then 4.0 messed everything up.

 

Leveling is way too fast and needs to be adjusted.

[sentientomega]

Not universally, but with a free token like the Gree one that nerfs XP abck into the Dark Ages of swtor levelling, so that power-levellers are unaffected by it, can thus and continue to smh at the smell-the-roses crowd.

 

I won't be doing that ofc, as I can respect their point of view, no-one here should be getting all belligerent for universal, arbitrary, mandatory XP nuke-nerfs.

[VanorDM]

Leveling is way too fast and needs to be adjusted.

 

Per this post...

I've been doing just the class and Planet Arc missions and they've kept me pretty much on level.

 

No it's not. People are leveling up at the speed they should be, based on the current system. Which is the purple missions. If someone does FP's, PvE, Op's, Heroics, ect... Then they will quite naturally level up faster.

 

But that was always true. My Mara was lvl 48 on Voss, and was maybe halfway through it. This was prior to 4.0, and I didn't do a lot of FP's and the like.

 

I'm fine with some sort of item that resets XP to the way it was before 4.0 and 12xp. But anyone who wants a universal change quite frankly doesn't understand how the system is supposed to work now, and should IMO keep their opinions to themselves. This is a case of choice being good, and anyone who wants to take away choice should just keep their mouths shut.

[Vankris]

 

No it's not. People are leveling up at the speed they should be, based on the current system. Which is the purple missions. If someone does FP's, PvE, Op's, Heroics, ect... Then they will quite naturally level up faster.

 

which discourage people that want to stay on curve to do any side activity like side quests , H2+ quest or flashpoint, or PVP, the kind of things that spiced up my leveling back in the day.

 

That is really too bad the game does not let us explore the world at our own pace. I know the level sync on planet now, but it usually sync about 6 level higher than the start of the planet. A 28-32 alderaan sync you at 34.

[VanorDM]

which discourage people that want to stay on curve to do any side activity like side quests

 

Which is why I have said a number of times, that an item or something that restores the XP rate to what it was before 4.0 would be a good idea.

 

I know the level sync on planet now, but it usually sync about 6 level higher than the start of the planet.

 

Even in the days of 1.X it wasn't that hard to be max level for most planets when you got to them. So even if you're a lvl or 2 above max, you're not really much higher than you were before. I haven't leveled up a ton of characters, but every one I did was max level for any planet past like lvl 25, prior to 4.0, that was with doing the 2+ heroics and other solo stuff, few if any FP's or the like.

 

If you were to do the 2+ Heroics, FP's and what are now the purple missions with the old XP rate... You'd likely be 2 or more levels over max for most planets anyway.