How level-sync kills the game for me

[Homoeopath]

I am really enjoying the level sync function. It has without a doubt revitalized the content for me. Due to outlevelling planets in the past, there were a lot of things I never bothered doing. Whole parts of the game I never saw. Now I have a CHOICE - I can move on or I can stay, or I can even go back to planets that otherwise were pointless returning to. I have multiple paths open to me now for levelling new characters. There are some classes I hadn't explored because I couldn't face the same old pathway - now I don't have to go the same way with any of them (apart from necessary story missions). I can do every quest on a planet, I can jump in and out of heroics, I can do FPs, I can follow particular planetary story arcs that interest me. When I log in on an alt now, I actually spend some time considering what I want to do - CHOICES! It's definitely increased my interest in playing again, and in sticking around to see what else happens. For an altaholic like myself it is very exciting. I'll get a few months just out of filling out my ranks with all the different class options, or looking around the other servers.

 

Depending on the class I am playing, there have even been times when I have died in heroics, or gotten close to it. I need to pay attention, sometimes even needed to CC in larger groups of elites. If I want to up the challenge, I choose a different role for the comp, or I choose a different comp - some of the tank comps use their multi-grapple ability to pull multiple groups! That can produce some hairy moments as we are fighting entire rooms lol. As I go up to higher level planets, I also notice the increase use of CC on my comp, who may often have aggro (especially if healing). Then things can become pretty serious - that comp may be out for valuable seconds while I am being beaten on by an elite or champion mob.

 

I know that our guild has grown substantially, that within guild there is a lot more grouping going on now that high/max levels can play alongside the lower levels and be adequately rewarded for it. It's been nice to hang out with the newbies in the lower level heroics, or take my lower level alts in guild groups farming for crates. The general sense of co-operation and camaraderie is very noticeable now - not just in guild but out on planets with random strangers. It almost feels like a new game - and most of the content is old. No mean feat on the Dev's part. I have to wonder if this would work in other games too that have grown stale or the power gap has grown too great. WoW's Timewalking dungeons have been pretty popular too, for similar reasons.

 

Another thing I have noticed - it actually INCREASES my immersion. Now whoever visits a planet has a set limit to the extent of their power, and all those creatures, conflicts, npcs and so on haven't magically become grey trash - they sill present some challenge and maintain the illusions of a universe where real struggles are going on and where there is danger because of those conflicts. How are the level 10 planets still around, when level 55 armies could just march in and destroy them? Well now they couldn't - while the mechanic is 'level syncing', for me it is an interesting tool to maintain a more realistic environment for the story.

[Max_Killjoy]

Another thing I have noticed - it actually INCREASES my immersion. Now whoever visits a planet has a set limit to the extent of their power, and all those creatures, conflicts, npcs and so on haven't magically become grey trash - they sill present some challenge and maintain the illusions of a universe where real struggles are going on and where there is danger because of those conflicts. How are the level 10 planets still around, when level 55 armies could just march in and destroy them? Well now they couldn't - while the mechanic is 'level syncing', for me it is an interesting tool to maintain a more realistic environment for the story.

 

I find it has the opposite effect, by making things that the character surpassed years ago and that have been "grey trash" forever... now suddenly (a very vague and hypothetical in most cases) threat.

[LordArtemis]

I don't think this is something that only a minority finds acceptable.

 

That said, I am always for options, and would not stand against an option to turn level sync off....apparently it is not impossible, since some folks found out you could disable it....I naturally will not state how, only that it has already been patched.

 

Options are best in most cases IMO.

 

I DEFINITELY think aggro range needs to be adjusted downward a bit....it is far too high right now IMO.

[Juromaro]

Have to agree here, Level sync is usually a cool feature but it is also annoying, it makes your character feel weak, as you should have grown strong enough to easily defeat those old foes.

 

Have to disagree there, I'm currently leveling a anni marauder, on Tatooine at sync(main level was 29), with vette set to heals I solo'd 1 champion 3 elites and a strong at once. I haven't died once on my character and I jump from mob to mob back to back in all the heroics. I hardly feel "weak" I actually feel stronger now.

[drakedge]

Just gonna chime in here, I play a DPS Juggy, Vengence spec and I kill most everything in just a couple hits while doing the 2+ heroic missions on various planets. It really takes very little to no time at all to clear a planet of its heroics. The level sync did nothing to slow this progress down at all.

 

If anything instead of hitting the mob once, I now have to hit it twice. With the companion nearby I don't even stop for a breather. Seriously anyone having problems with this isn't doing it right. Top that off with the instant transfer items to teleport you around, and the ability to help out lowbies nearby with them gaining more exp with you than with out you, it's a win win.

 

I guess some people want even more challenge removed from the game.

[Pietrastor]

I don't think this is something that only a minority finds acceptable.

 

That said, I am always for options, and would not stand against an option to turn level sync off....apparently it is not impossible, since some folks found out you could disable it....I naturally will not state how, only that it has already been patched.

 

Options are best in most cases IMO.

 

I DEFINITELY think aggro range needs to be adjusted downward a bit....it is far too high right now IMO.

There is no option here. You let 65s turn off level-sync without restrictions and they steal WBs and mobs like they used to. You let them turn it off yet not attack WBs and it's no longer an actual option as they're blocked from content. Either sync for all or none, simple

[Nihilkult]

Many people have already complained about this new feature, even the ones that this feature was added for.

 

I am a PvPer. I am poor. I do not have a lot of credits. I do not have the patience to earn credits via the ah.

Until now, I used to farm my credits for augments and gear optimization by killing mobs. I used to go to corellia, farm a day and buy my stuff from the credits I earn there.

 

I cannot do this any longer now, I am forced to do sh** heroics, which are buggy and overfarmed for a ridicilous amount of time to even be able to optimize the equip of my two main chars.

 

 

Level sync is annoying, the ''story-guys'' do not like it, we PvPers do not like it and most PvEers as well dislike it (with a few eceptions of course)

 

Why can you not make LS optional so you can activate it if you are in the mood of redoing some quests on a 'difficult'' level

 

I would highly appreciate if you could just let the players decide wheter they want to spend time doing something or not. I HATE story, I HATE heroics, I quickly farm my credits for my gear and then stay on the fleet until next expac.

 

Please this is not that hard to do.

 

You must be one of those guys who post mods at 25k on GTN while others sell it all at 60K minimum to be still that poor. Also, people who are actually on the level to take ressources on Corellia must be happy not having max levels selfishly genociding the whole area. Just saying...

 

Seriously with the new crafting system I multiplied my income by 5 at least. And this without annoying lower levels stealing their mobs etc or doing heroics. In fact I must have done 5 heroics all in all since 4.0 launch

 

Also , you hate story? What the hell are you doing on a game which main selling point is story and doesn't have any groundbreaking gameplay whatsoever!? Oo

Edited November 6, 2015 by Nihilkult

[DAWUSS]

I do miss being able to solo certain WBs and SM FPs...

[Max_Killjoy]

There is no option here. You let 65s turn off level-sync without restrictions and they steal WBs and mobs like they used to. You let them turn it off yet not attack WBs and it's no longer an actual option as they're blocked from content. Either sync for all or none, simple

 

And yet in all the years of playing I don't recall ever having witnessed max-level players "stealing" mobs on "original" planets, and world bosses used to and still do go largely unmolested on many worlds...

 

Even if this "mob stealing" thing is not just a red herring, the answer is still simple -- entire separate synced and unsynced "world" instances.

 

And as an added benefit, we'd see a sort of concrete measure of how many players do and don't want to be synced.

[Khevar]

And yet in all the years of playing I don't recall ever having witnessed max-level players "stealing" mobs on "original" planets, and world bosses used to and still do go largely unmolested on many worlds...

Yeah, I can't say I've ever seen this either.

 

I did, however, notice that during the 3.0 cycle it was common to find world bosses out on a respan timer, having been killed by someone else.

 

Basically, once the level cap went from 55 to 60, this opened up a number of new world bosses that could be soloed, and so players that wanted to unlock that achievement would go ahead and solo them, removing them from the map.

 

This wasn't the case with "summonable" world bosses (e.g. Nightmare Pilgrim), just the open world ones.

[Pietrastor]

I did, however, notice that during the 3.0 cycle it was common to find world bosses out on a respan timer, having been killed by someone else.

Exactly. Ever tried to "catch" Primal Destroyer on Belsavis? It was camped on timers 24/7 by farmers of crystal schematics

[Darth-Obvious]

No, I've read the thread in its entirety;

 

No, apparently you haven't, because you're still not getting it.

 

it still doesn't make hyperbole or "blowing things out of proportion" a good argument for either side of the discussion.

 

Except I already explained that wasn't exactly what I was doing and also said I chose the wrong words to describe what I was doing. You would've known that had you actually read the thread.

 

See, just like the OP I caught you in a lie. Way to go.

 

A good argument should be persuasive and nature in an effort to convince others of your point of view through honest discussion of the facts. Tactics such as hyperbole tend to alienate rather than persuade while undermining your credibility. The actions and tactics of your opposition do not validate these tactics nor do they make them any more effective; they are just as bad regardless of anything anyone else has done or said.

 

Hey professor dictionary nobody here cares about what an argument should or shouldn't be. Waxing intellectual or talking semantics isn't doing anything for you, me, or anyone here. It's completely pointless to the overall thread.

 

^This type of thing you're posting makes you come off worse than anyone here because it makes you seem extremely arrogant and that you feel the need to dictate to others how to talk or fight.

 

I've made these posts in direct response to yours not because they were the "last post", but because you were the one who openly admitted to using such tactics, and to doing so intentionally.

 

Yeah and admitted that my choice of wording was wrong, but yet you still responded anyways though because you just "had" to right? Like the world would've ended had you not have posted right? I mean that's the level of arrogance and preachy holier than thou attitude you give off so that must be the case.

 

But if you're really not looking to have anybody pay attention to your posts, why bother posting in the first place?

 

Unlike you I don't expect attention or for people to pay attention to everything I say, but if I can draw more attention to how dumb the OP is being in a thread where everybody already thinks he's being dumb, it's not really an issue, it's just part of the flow.

 

Not to mention I couldn't help but notice you completely ignored this...

 

Yet you cherry pick his post and ignore the hyperbole of the OP.

 

...despite apparently reading everything in the thread.

[Darth-Obvious]

Most people on my server complain about it. I understand it exists so people cant complete the weekly heroics instafast but it just makes doing most of the heroics, which is all old content that I used to mostly skip, utterly grindy.

 

Level sync combined with overcharged comps kills any enjoyment. All LS means is that it takes longer to do anything.

 

Level sync is both grindy and boring.

 

Here's the thing, I wasn't really talking about just Heroic 4's. Everything takes more time now. Including missions on the outside areas. Where i was easily able to do Ilum story on a fresh lvl 50-55 char on average to good gear in just a couple of hours, it now took about 5 to complete with a lvl 60 sorc in 186 gear with full augments and stuff. And ilum was just one example.

 

If i want to solo some group content, i'm perfectly fine with it taking some time. However running through story content and daily areas is what took the worse hit with level sync. Time-wise I mean.

 

Edit: I just have to add that level sync doesn't bother me at all when i'm leveling up a new character. It's actually a good thing for new characters. However for old or max level characters it only slows down the already tedious grinding of dailies etc. It's not more fun, just more annoying and more tedious.

 

It's an MMO. They're all grindy and boring by design.

 

Can you name an MMO that's not grindy and boring? Nope, because they all do things as much as they possibly can to create time sinks that keep in the game longer, and that's exactly what they want. They want to be able to keep in the game as long as possible without having to spend a bunch of R&D to make new content to that and what a shock they ended up making most of the old/existing content relevant again.

 

99% of the heroics were always soloable. You just had to equip and manage your companion a bit. Now they just give less credits because the loot creds got nuked. Not to mention the removal of orange armor and weapon shells.

 

Yeah if only there was a way to easily get orange armor shells now. I mean it's not like you can get them from the purple alliance crates that you get from every single heroic you do (once level 61) and it's too bad that those orange shells that you're not getting aren't all legacy bound either

 

I do miss being able to solo certain WBs and SM FPs...

 

But by adding the Qyzen World Boss quest in KOTFE it makes WBs more relevant and gives people a reason to group up and do them. You now see way more people doing WB groups because they're trying to complete that quest now.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Darth-Obvious

[Darth-Obvious]

I find it has the opposite effect, by making things that the character surpassed years ago and that have been "grey trash" forever... now suddenly (a very vague and hypothetical in most cases) threat.

 

That kills immersion for you, but your character being a mass murdering psychopath that's killed hundreds if not thousands of enemies at this point with a lightsaber that doesn't instantly kill everything it touches isn't immersion breaking? But that's a concede of SWTOR being a video game right, unlike this level sync thing which isn't a video game concede at all huh?

 

Even if this "mob stealing" thing is not just a red herring, the answer is still simple -- entire separate synced and unsynced "world" instances.

 

Yeah I'm sure everyone has total faith in Bioware's ability to actually accomplish that without somehow increasing server stress, not to mention it would probably be a really easy thing to accomplish that costs no time and money that Bioware could spend on other places of the game.

 

And as an added benefit, we'd see a sort of concrete measure of how many players do and don't want to be synced.

 

No we wouldn't. There's no way to properly gauge that if players are constantly hopping back and forth between instances to join groups or friends.

 

Your brilliant idea just leads down the rabbit hole of private instances being a good idea.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Darth-Obvious

[LordArtemis]

There is no option here. You let 65s turn off level-sync without restrictions and they steal WBs and mobs like they used to. You let them turn it off yet not attack WBs and it's no longer an actual option as they're blocked from content. Either sync for all or none, simple

 

There is an option here. There are caveats to both options. It is actually simpler than you think.

 

I would not oppose the option. It seems you would. And there we stand. There was no need to counter my post directly since your opinion is not going to effect mine.

 

To do so is just silly.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah I'm sure everyone has total faith in Bioware's ability to actually accomplish that without somehow increasing server stress, not to mention it would probably be a really easy thing to accomplish that costs no time and money that Bioware could spend on other places of the game.

 

So we're supposed to trust Bioware to get the major changes of levelsync, companion power, etc, right at some point here, and in a way that doesn't make the game much worse for one or more segments of the playerbase. (And so far, they're failing miserably...)

 

But we're NOT supposed to trust Bioware to get separate instances right?

 

 

 

No we wouldn't. There's no way to properly gauge that if players are constantly hopping back and forth between instances to join groups or friends.

 

So... watching trends in which type of instance gets more volume over time would tell us nothing? Really?

 

And how much grouping really goes on?

 

 

Your brilliant idea just leads down the rabbit hole of private instances being a good idea.

 

They're not?

[Tharenisis]

Heavy PvPer and Story Fanboy here. I like it.

 

Made 2 mil credits yesterday while doing pvp matches.

 

I will not give away my secret, however I can say that its something you can do WHILE pvping, that isn't necessarily pvp.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Tharenisis

[IanArgent]

So we're supposed to trust Bioware to get the major changes of levelsync, companion power, etc, right at some point here, and in a way that doesn't make the game much worse for one or more segments of the playerbase. (And so far, they're failing miserably...)

 

But we're NOT supposed to trust Bioware to get separate instances right?

 

 

One is a question of tweaking numbers; the other of engine and hardware limits. Two different classes of problems.

[Artaniz]

So we're supposed to trust Bioware to get the major changes of levelsync, companion power, etc, right at some point here, and in a way that doesn't make the game much worse for one or more segments of the playerbase. (And so far, they're failing miserably...)

But we're NOT supposed to trust Bioware to get separate instances right?

So... watching trends in which type of instance gets more volume over time would tell us nothing? Really?

And how much grouping really goes on?

They're not?

 

We can trust you will still be here crying about all kinds of nonsense when they finally do though.

 

4.0 wasa major patch , it looks to have brought people back to the game , hopefully that means a few new hires over at BW and the time to work on bug fixes.

 

In the mean time its right after 4.0 and you know patches as massive in scope as this one that change so many game systems tend to have bugs and take time to work out.

 

Any and i mean ANY of you that think you are not paying 15 bucks or w/e a month to be beta testers have lost sight of what online gaming really is.

[Codedrago]

The point is, I do not like doing heroics.

 

As farming credits is necessary to be well geared for engame content (in my case pvp)

forcing players to do heroic quests in order to be prepare for it is generally not a good idea.

 

I do not like questing in general0, I dislike those ''heroics'' even more because I could just hopp into one, pull everything, go downstairs to make myself a coffee, return, bang my head against a wall and when I wake up my companion will have cleared the instance alone...

 

Apart from the fact that heroics are less efficient credit per hour wise than my ultra farming spot of awesomeness

why should I play a game that requires me to do something a lot that I do not like doing only to be able to enjoy awfully balanced pvp because they've spent their money and time develloping story.

 

You're not forced to do heroic, you're never told 'You can not go any further until you do this heroic', nor are heroics the only way to get credits. There's...

Pvp

GSF

Flashpoints

Dalies

Crew Skills

Alliance Quests

Supply Boxes

[Yadarya]

Should have a toggle, at least on open world planets. It is really obnoxious going to farm mats, gsi parts (speeder, armor), achievements, whatever and being slowed down by mobs so far below you in level.

 

In one circumstance I got jumped by a champion level mob over 20 levels below me, and it took me nearly 10 minutes to kill it as a healer with no dps. 10 minutes to loot items 20 levels below me and clear the area for farming.

 

Second time around, i just waited for the thing to kill me and went to another area. It was faster. I was already having a painful enough experience trying to get my "pleasure speeder" parts as it is.

OH JEDI, you so powerful

 

As far as the World Bosses go, if this really is a concern for some people, surely there must be a way to code it so that you can not participate in WB fight unless you have your toggle on. Personally though, It doesn't matter to me if a high level wants to solo a WB because that makes sense to me story wise and people can finish out achievements that they otherwise have not been able to find a group for.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Yadarya

[IanArgent]

In one circumstance I got jumped by a champion level mob over 20 levels below me, and it took me nearly 10 minutes to kill it as a healer with no dps. 10 minutes to loot items 20 levels below me and clear the area for farming.

 

 

What was your companion set to? And which healing class? I run both Consular and Trooper heals, and either one can kick out enough DPS to finish the fight quicker than that

[Darth-Obvious]

Should have a toggle, at least on open world planets. It is really obnoxious going to farm mats, gsi parts (speeder, armor), achievements, whatever and being slowed down by mobs so far below you in level.

 

Oh yeah and what percentage of SWTOR's population do you think spends time farming stuff like that? Wanna take a guess that it's not anywhere significant enough to make the level sync optional just for that? But then again there's really no reason to guess there is there?

 

In one circumstance I got jumped by a champion level mob over 20 levels below me, and it took me nearly 10 minutes to kill it as a healer with no dps. 10 minutes to loot items 20 levels below me and clear the area for farming.

 

Again, you're in a small niche of people that are having this problem. Not to mention I somehow seriously doubt the area you were farming was the only place to acquire what you were trying to get. In other words the above situation isn't a 100% occurrence. Really it just seems like you now knowing how to play the game now.

 

As far as the World Bosses go, if this really is a concern for some people, surely there must be a way to code it so that you can not participate in WB fight unless you have your toggle on.

 

No, the only way you could really do it would be to separate out various instances for those with and without level sync. You can't really have both types of players in the same instance interacting with one another.

 

Personally though, It doesn't matter to me if a high level wants to solo a WB because that makes sense to me story wise and people can finish out achievements that they otherwise have not been able to find a group for.

 

Now that they added the Qyzen WB quest it doesn't make sense to allow people to solo WBs anymore. They would constantly be down due to people being able to solo them. Compared to now where there are now groups frequently doing or looking to the do WBs.

 

4.0 has added a number of things to incentivize people to actually group together to do things, and that's a bad thing. The only people that seem to be super upset by it are those like you who are just greedy/selfish and just out for themselves. MMOs like SWTOR created numerous problems by design that really incentivize players to only look out for themselves rather than doing what's best for the overall population of players, which is what a multiplayer focused game should do. It's a big part of what Guild Wars 2 does, so it's not really surprising that they took the level sync mechanic straight out of Guild Wars 2 given how successful it is there.

[VanorDM]

Only thing the level sync accomplished was making EVERYTHING take twice as much time.

 

Sorry but that's pure BS. It can at best take as long as it did the first time. There's no way you can run though a heroic and have it take longer than it did the first time you did it.

 

It may take longer than it did when you were max level, but I can not believe it's anywhere near double, and unlike then you're actually getting XP now, unless your lvl 65... And if so why are you doing low level stuff in the first place?

[VanorDM]

In one circumstance I got jumped by a champion level mob over 20 levels below me, and it took me nearly 10 minutes to kill it as a healer with no dps.

 

Again I call BS. I killed an Elite using nothing more than my default strike in a minute or two, and that was with Kira being set to healer. If it took you even 10 minutes to kill a champion, it's because you're doing something wrong.