SWTOR is too easy now!!!

[Rion_Starkiller]

I'll leave out the seemingly obligatory 'SWTOR was always easy' comment.

 

Levelling is certainly quicker, but there's no reason to attribute levelling speed to difficulty.

Level scalling is a huge boon as it allows the vast majority of mission rewards and mob drops to stay relevant so it does not matter if you over level.

When I was playing through, as a completionist, I was always on the verge of turning missions grey. I think the lowest I was ever overlevelled after leaving the starter worlds was 5 levels, that made a huge difference.

 

There is also the issue of difficulty and grind. Grinding out levels and gear for the character and the companion does not add to difficulty it only adds to the time sink. This may have been fine in a less saturated market where everyone had lots of time to waste but nowadays not so much. SWTOR has made vast improvements with its time sink removing a lot of the travel time restrictions and the need to equip a variety of companions.

 

Companions have always had their issues. Maybe if you were unfortunate to pick a class that didn't get a healer until later levels you would struggle a little through the fights. Now that any companion can be set to healer role this isn't an issue, although I find ranged weapon companions make for better healers than melee based ones.

Also, pre-4.0, if you had spent the time to unlock the various companions across classes and unleash the full +500 presence buff companions were ridiculously overpowered on the early worlds, far more than they are now.

 

The biggest issue with setting difficulty in an MMO such as SWTOR is predictability. Every time you run through a world the mobs are laid out exactly the same. Flashpoints are the same every time you run them.

When you apply a level and gear system to this as long as you know a rotation and can hit the right values the game will never be challenging. There is no need to vary your attacks.

When you start running Operations for progression once you can clear it, it will only ever get easier as you collect the better drops and take on the muscle memory for the boss fights. I think most players whether they admit it to themselves or not are craving variation from the routine rather than running the same predictable content over and over and over again, each time getting easier and easier.

 

If only they had some way of playing against an opponent that was unpredictable... but unfortunately PvP exposes us to our own failings that we are not as L33t as we like to think and that there are people out there better at the game than we are. (Not to mention given gear differences and the ability to group up balance is a serious issue even in a basic PvP set up )

 

First off, allow me to interject my own obligatory SWTOR-was-always-easy comment.

 

I think your entire post is spot on.

 

Some thoughts of my own:

Before 4.0, you know how each chapter gives you 2 planets that you have to finish? One is at the current level (green or yellow), and the other (yellow or red) is a few levels above? I used to always do the hard (yellow/red) planet first because 1) it was more of a challenge, 2) mission loot doesn't have level requirements, 3) it was just more fun because I had to put thought into the game. Then I would go to the lower leveled planet, it was always grayed out, and I'd steamroll through real fast. Then I would go to the next chapter, rinse repeat.

 

I would also go to Makeb at level 47 and do the first mission, because you would get a green 128 mainhand with no level requirements as mission reward.

 

Anyway the problem, as I see it, isn't JUST that the game is too easy (and it is), it's the combination of speed-leveling, bolster (obligatory gear-doesn't-matter comment), and jesus-comps that have broken the balance of the game.

 

No one should have to actively handicap themselves to make the game normal difficulty level.

 

Game is broken.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Rion_Starkiller

[Deewe]

I remember when "I can replace you with a comp" was just about the gravest insult you could hear, and it was used in FPs a lot. .

Been doing quite a lot FP lately due to leveling toons. Too often after wiping a couple of times one or two player would drop the group... to be immediately replaced with companions. Letting us to clear the FP way faster and without wipes.

 

Funny thing is most of the time the skilled players aren't usually the ones quitting. They are in fact patient enough or even try to guide others of what do to, like selecting the right stance, avoiding specific hits, going into specific spots, marking mobs so they don't break CC.

 

Another example 2 days ago the stupid group finder made me do the same FP twice in a raw. The first one was slow and painful. I had a misery to tank. People would break my CC, attack before me, hit the wrong mobs, not use the healing stations in short it was painful. I was being told I sucked at tanking...

 

So imagine in what mood I was when 5 min after finishing that FP I land in it again as the tank...

All in all we had lower characters though everyone was doing what (s)he was supposed to do. We had a n00b with us tough he admitted it up front. We gave him a couple of hints and we just cleared the FP like on a rampage. It was a breeze.

 

Now there's a reason most good players don't usually PUG, especially with XP boost events.

[IanArgent]

Having done all the non-solo-available (and one solo-available) FPs for DvL paired with my wife and running 2 comps; and having run plenty of 3-man groups via GF, I'm vaguely coming to the conclusion that, while it's almost certainly emergent gameplay and not by-design, being able to run FPs "understaffed" is A Good Thing.

 

Which probably means that rewards for running in a 4-man group should be boosted.

[peter_plankskull]

Having done all the non-solo-available (and one solo-available) FPs for DvL paired with my wife and running 2 comps; and having run plenty of 3-man groups via GF, I'm vaguely coming to the conclusion that, while it's almost certainly emergent gameplay and not by-design, being able to run FPs "understaffed" is A Good Thing.

 

Which probably means that rewards for running in a 4-man group should be boosted.

 

It would be better to just make companions not usable in group instanced content, assuming they make a solo FP for all flashpoints. Tacticals aren't story content, they don't NEED to be ran by everyone, and they should be introducing the mechanics in each FP. Not just simply get carried by a comp or spam kolto stations. Level sync and scaling did a lot of good things in the game imo, although it was burdened by other design features, however, tacticals in 4.0 were implemented terribly. It's to hard for lower levels of less skill, and far to easy with higher levels, two 65s of average skill level can plow through them. Not to mention the bosses don't teach any mechanics... at all... just spam heal kolto stations if low on health.

[Deewe]

It would be better to just make companions not usable in group instanced content, assuming they make a solo FP for all flashpoints.

Agrerd though Issue being people drop FP and it can take ages to get a replacement.

 

So until the SWTOR population is healthy enough we need companions to fill in the blanks

[Tsetso]

It would be better to just make companions not usable in group instanced content, assuming they make a solo FP for all flashpoints. Tacticals aren't story content, they don't NEED to be ran by everyone, and they should be introducing the mechanics in each FP. Not just simply get carried by a comp or spam kolto stations. Level sync and scaling did a lot of good things in the game imo, although it was burdened by other design features, however, tacticals in 4.0 were implemented terribly. It's to hard for lower levels of less skill, and far to easy with higher levels, two 65s of average skill level can plow through them. Not to mention the bosses don't teach any mechanics... at all... just spam heal kolto stations if low on health.

 

The funny thing is that groups can enter SOLO flashpoints. I found that when 2 of my guildmates entered solo fp by accident. All they had to do was go after the 2 jesus droids and their 2 companions and gather the loot.

[peter_plankskull]

Agrerd though Issue being people drop FP and it can take ages to get a replacement.

 

So until the SWTOR population is healthy enough we need companions to fill in the blanks

 

Tacticals pop pretty fast on most servers I heard, but the real problem with the HM FPs version is because their crap for the effort required.

[IanArgent]

If all FPs had a solo mode, I'd be on-board with locking comps out of them. They don't, currently.

 

Also, aren't we about "options" for adjusting difficulty? Running a 2-PC group through a TFP is (or at least can be, depending on companion influence) more difficult than doing so with a 4-PC group. (At the extreme high end, it is at least theoretically possible to solo some tactical flashpoints now, no? I tried Hammer Station the other day for grins and giggles, and while it was obviously beyond my current skill and resource level, it didn't appear to be categorically impossible, and I thought I've seen people claim to have done so).

 

Companions are "better than" a PC in a TFP, either when the PC is in over their head, difficulty-wise, or if the companion is set to cover a different and missing role. Not categorically so.

[ImmortalLowlife]

I'm sorry you got those comments and were treated that way...it's unhealthy for those of us who enjoy this game to ever act like that...but...I admire that you were honest and I greatly appreciate the way you help new players now. THANK YOU for sticking around!!! We need more people to act like you. You're a perfect example of why I'm fine with leveling like it is - playing casually should be enjoyable, even if it is too "easy" for some, because it's not "easy" for everyone.

 

Unlike most MMOs, this game allows you great freedom tp select the difficulty you want - you can dismiss your companion, put them on passive, or limit the number of skills they use. Again, it's not a perfect system like it is now, but it sure as hell beats what we had prior to 4.0 imo.

 

Thanks Tux... funny story.... I was playing the solo version of Maelstrom prison earlier this week with my Jedi knight (tank spec) so I could show my daughter who Revan was. I didn't realize until I was about to start that last fight that I'd been playing without my God droid. I asked her if she noticed when he died, and she said it was during the fight with that first big droid. Apparently I'd played most of the fp without him and I never even noticed. guess that means I've gotten better than I realized. Lol

[IanArgent]

Thanks Tux... funny story.... I was playing the solo version of Maelstrom prison earlier this week with my Jedi knight (tank spec) so I could show my daughter who Revan was. I didn't realize until I was about to start that last fight that I'd been playing without my God droid. I asked her if she noticed when he died, and she said it was during the fight with that first big droid. Apparently I'd played most of the fp without him and I never even noticed. guess that means I've gotten better than I realized. Lol

 

Now there's an example of "difficulty adjustment," whether or not you have the GSI droid with you.

[Icykill_]

As you've seen from some of the other posters, any long term players of the game have witnessed the game being dumbed down and it is now ridiculously easy.

The only part of the game that is still semi challenging is pvp. The reason for that is you can't dumb down a human component in the game or can you?. Sure you can dumb down the class or make a class OP, but that doesn't dumb down the players, hhhmmm, maybe.

The only way to dumb down players is for all the experienced pvpers to all leave the game and have all the new players who only play the dumbed down pve version of the game, start playing pvp.

Oh wait, isn't that what's happening at the moment? Most of the experienced pvpers have left the game.

The new pvpers only know how to play the dumbed down version of the game. They rarely know their classes abilities because frankly, you don't need to use 90% in lvling story quests. You can face roll the story and just spam AOE on everything. This is why we see so many Sorcs in pvp who just spam force storm.

Pvp is the last bastion of any challenge in this game, but when they continue to dumb down the rest of the game, pvp gets dumbed down too.

 

I remember watching a documentary on video game development history and one of the developers said there was a fine line between making a game too hard or too easy and still make it an enjoyable experience. If the game was too hard or complicated, then players wouldn't get into it or would be frustrated and stop playing. But if the game was too easy, then there would be no challenge and players would stop playing for that reason.

Bioware have gone too far down the easy path. While I can see the merits of making the game a "little" easier for new players, they have gone to far. The way to make the game easier and more understandable for new players was to stream line things like 5min CD on quick travel, etc, and not make it a "huge" grind, which they did address with some success. But they also dumbed down the mobs and the quests and made companions OP and removed the need to actually need groups to do 2-4 man group content, they removed the need to gear properly and to search out quests to get specific gear to help you on your journey through the game.

I thought the "idea" in 3.0 to allow you to progress through the end story without a group had merit. Not everyone can always find a group when they need one and the 3.0 expansion was essentially and extension of the class stories. But they made it too easy with the "added" combat droid companion. They could have removed the combat droid and just made the mobs "slightly" less powerful for the solo mode. The combat droid was/is way too powerful. I've actually dismissed my companion to test how hard it is just with the droid and it is still easy.

Bioware didn't learn from this mistake when 4.0 came out and they made all companions OP. They are still all OP as well, even though they said they nerfed them. We also still have that dumb combat droid for somethings too.

The game is nearly so easy that if you could put your companion on auto and just tell them to run through the mission, you could put yourself on follow and it would get you to the end.

 

Bioware, please stop dumbing down the game. It's already become too easy, any easier and it becomes a child's game or a game for my 75 year old mother.

[Tsillah]

What makes SWTOR easier than before in my view in leveling are the following:

 

Increased leveling speed.

More powerful companions.

 

I don't think I have to explain why more powerful companions affect this but let me explain why I do believe that leveling speed has an effect. As much as we have level sync, the reality is that being heavily over leveled while going through much of the original story means you have a lot of skills that you didn't have before going through the same content.

 

The original content clearly took more time to level through but also the difficulty took your level range into account as you progressed and gained new skills. I do not believe they've adapted the mobs to a level 60 with a full skill completement dumbed down to level 20 or something. So the level 20 content is easier to do.

 

Now you might say that before these changes a level 60 could just wail through all that even easier and that would be true...except you wouldn't generally be overleveled much so that was not the norm. Now the norm is that you are overleveled because you level so quickly and therefore your skill set makes you more powerful. Level sync simply doesn't balance that out.

 

But that's the main difference to me. Before it was the norm that you were roughly around the right level for your content and now the norm is that you're overleveled and I don't believe the mob difficulty has been adjust accordingly probably because f2p players who get a lot less xp would get in trouble as they won't be over leveled as much as subs are.

[UmbralSpirit]

What makes SWTOR easier than before in my view in leveling are the following:

 

Increased leveling speed.

More powerful companions.

 

What many "the good old days" sayers also miss is that in those days you quickly where underlevel'd if you skipped just a little content and found yourself fighting yellow/orange mobs, ofc there was a difference in fighting yellow/orange mobs over fighting green/grey ones and that difference is still here but it's next to impossible to happen due to the increased xp gain.

[Tsillah]

What many "the good old days" sayers also miss is that in those days you quickly where underlevel'd if you skipped just a little content and found yourself fighting yellow/orange mobs, ofc there was a difference in fighting yellow/orange mobs over fighting green/grey ones and that difference is still here but it's next to impossible to happen due to the increased xp gain.

 

I do remember that but as usual BW swings from one extreme to another. I didn't mind them improving the xp to some degree so you don't have to do all of that, but here's the thing...

 

Today I made an F2P account to test it. I made a sorc and in just under 3 hours I made it to level 17. Now do mind I have not rushed but I do know the class enough not to waste any time. I am almost level 18 ready to do my first solo black talon and I already opened up DK as I had 20k credits.

 

Aside from the SH, I have NOT been to Dromund Kaas yet.

 

Let that sink in. I will be level 18 before going to Dromund Kaas as a full F2P player. I have not given any advantages via my main account nor did I buy any unlock at all. I did do the two heroics on DK and I did do one warzone to get the implants and relics stuff from that first time quest, which gives you at least 2 levels as well.

 

But if as F2P, with reduced xp gain, I can already have a level that's well over the DK cap before even going to DK, you can't tell me they haven't gone too far in this.

 

I also got 3 xp boosts from the game. The first one still has an hour left on it.

 

And here's another thing...with my sub account I'm not far ahead when I level a new toon. Hardly at all, so what gives with this increased xp? Maybe the difference will become noticeable later on but it seems that going from 1-20 is just as easy.

 

There is one difference that is quite clear that I have to mention. With a sub account you do get there faster. It takes more time to get the same progress as you don't start with sprint and don't get a speeder at level 10 and I don't have rocket boots and I don't have all buffs unlocked. But when it comes to the point of going from creating the character at level 1 and arriving at DK, the only difference is the time it takes and not so much how many levels you gain. Such is my experience today.

 

And with that I actually enjoyed it more than I would've done at subscriber speed.

 

So in a sense it was more fun to level this character so far, than it had been in quite a while. I find that most interesting.

[Vhaegrant]

There is one difference that is quite clear that I have to mention. With a sub account you do get there faster. It takes more time to get the same progress as you don't start with sprint and don't get a speeder at level 10 and I don't have rocket boots and I don't have all buffs unlocked. But when it comes to the point of going from creating the character at level 1 and arriving at DK, the only difference is the time it takes and not so much how many levels you gain. Such is my experience today.

 

And with that I actually enjoyed it more than I would've done at subscriber speed.

 

So in a sense it was more fun to level this character so far, than it had been in quite a while. I find that most interesting.

You do know as a subscriber you can turn all of those off.

If you really want the full vanilla launch experience don't mount up in spaceports and limit yourself to ridiculous cool downs on quick travel and fleet pass

 

I've only got a few MMOs under my belt but my experience has been they all make the older content quicker to get through as the game adds on expansions.

The bigger problem is what's waiting there to be done at endgame as players race through the levelling experience.

Personally, despite some of the issues of level sync affecting the levelling flow, it does make all the planets relevant again when you hit level cap which is far more important to me than the levelling experience itself.

Pre-4.0 there was very little if any point to go back and run early planet heroics or dailies. Instead you were stuck running whatever happened to be the latest expansions daily/weekly zone. That can get dull very quickly.

Are the heroics easy, well yes they are if you run through them with a healer companion (although I've seen a trend that Imperial heroics are quicker and easier in most than Republic heroics, just go to Nar Shaddaa and run them ) but at least they are all dropping a reasonable reward.

From what I've seen in game it's the reward that counts not the difficulty. For everyone here saying they want harder content I see many, many more on fleet trying to put together 4 man heroic groups for the bonus credits.

 

Some of the comments about over-levelled and under-levelled also seem to miss the point that it was very rarely making a fight more difficult but just drawing out the inevitable. With most of the encounters you are just looking at whether your ability to damage the enemy overcomes their ability to damage you. The simple level difference penalties tended to draw the fights out to a slog (especially if you had a healer present) not harder combat, just longer more tedious combat.

 

For me the difficulty lays in group composition and abilities the mobs have.

And again, once you know things like taking out the squishy healer first and making sure you interrupt those channeled hard hitting abilities is there any likelihood the game will get harder?

Maybe, if instead of adding on a damage resistance and more hitpoints to a mob they got a significant alacrity bonus allowing them access to a faster rotation of their abilities we would start to see real difficulty improvements. The combats would not necessarily be any longer but you would have to be more on the ball with interrupts and crowd control.

 

Then there is group composition. Some of the harder combats I've had are when you get multiple healers in the group. Or, like on Voss, where you meet enemy that can place heavy armour debuffs on you (well it meant more to me on my Powertech )

 

And of course there in lies the true issue with difficulty in the basic game. It has to make allowances for such a wide spread of character builds. There is a massively different experience for a character that has no self heals and no long crowd controls (say Powertech) to one that does (for example Sorcerer).

Given that through the use of utilities the Sorcerer can go even further in specialising their Whirlwind ability to be an instant cast that traps additional weak/normal opponents and if broken early stuns them.

Or, a stealth based character that can just weave past all the mobs and sprint straight to the end fight.

 

If you are not going to make content specifically for roles and discipline builds, and you are not going to open up all of the abilities for all characters in open world play, you will always have a game that is inherently easy for some and next to impossible to provide any sense of challenge.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Vhaegrant

[robertthebard]

The problem I have with the "you level too fast now" line of reasoning is that, one could level every bit as fast back then. Sometime after RotHC and before KotFE was even a rumor, our Pub side guild figured that the way to garner more attention was to up our presence. So, we did a race to 50 on the Pub side.

 

The rules were simple, you took a toon to 20, and then, at the start of the event, you had one week to get to 50. Fairly simple, and straightforward. Within 3 days, my healer spec'd sage was 50, by the end of the race, she was 55, which was the cap, I believe. Now, here's the kicker: In that same time frame, I continued to tank NiM and HM Ops and FPs for the Imp side guild. I also worked on my heal spec'd sorc, who also capped, and ran several runs of the dailies on Oricon on 8 different toons. Out of curiosity, I checked /played on that sage, 9 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes, and she's 65, and hasn't touched KotFE.

 

It's not like we didn't have threads about being overleveled for content back then, oh wait, we did. It's not like we weren't hearing about how easy it was to level back then, except that we were. The only thing we're not hearing now is how hard it is to keep both your's and your comp's gear current. Now we can reach the same plateaus of complaints w/out having to run the same side quests is also a difference, but in the end, the arguments are the same now as then: We're leveling too fast for the content.

[Tsillah]

You do know as a subscriber you can turn all of those off.

If you really want the full vanilla launch experience don't mount up in spaceports and limit yourself to ridiculous cool downs on quick travel and fleet pass

 

You can but that's not really the point when you're comparing base line experiences. In this discussion it's about what makes gaming too easy. One of the issues is being over leveled because in spite of level sync you are still much more powerful than a character who would be of the actual level of the encounter. And as it stands the F2P experience was enjoyable but it still over levels you by a ton so it doesn't help with the difficulty of the game being too easy pretty much right away. I would've hoped a bigger difference, making it so that I would be no more than level 12-13 when going to DK instead of level 18+. I would have to actively avoid things I would not want to avoid like doing black talon and doing the pvp quest that gives a bunch of trinkets. Those trinkets matter in f2p as you do not get the blue gear from doing heroics. Now I don't have a problem with a free game having restrictions especially when there are subs but this restriction I find a strange one myself.

 

My test with F2P in the end was to check how much of a difference it would make in being overleveled if you are F2P but the difference so far is negligible, so even as F2P you are way overleveled from the start and I find that peculiar at best.

 

I've only got a few MMOs under my belt but my experience has been they all make the older content quicker to get through as the game adds on expansions.

 

Sure, but SWTOR's core game from 1-50 is actually one of the stronger points of the game but in its current iteration it has lost a lot of its flair. I'd say, as usual, BW went too far in some things and not far enough in others. I think the xp gain should be less but that there should be a story xp toggle that you can turn on or off to get massive xp from main story quests which would allow you to level smoothly from planet to planet by only using the story quests. Then people can choose the fast or the slower track and be roughly on level for the content they are leveling through. Just my opinion of course.

[Tsillah]

The problem I have with the "you level too fast now" line of reasoning is that, one could level every bit as fast back then. Sometime after RotHC and before KotFE was even a rumor, our Pub side guild figured that the way to garner more attention was to up our presence. So, we did a race to 50 on the Pub side.

 

The rules were simple, you took a toon to 20, and then, at the start of the event, you had one week to get to 50. Fairly simple, and straightforward. Within 3 days, my healer spec'd sage was 50, by the end of the race, she was 55, which was the cap, I believe. Now, here's the kicker: In that same time frame, I continued to tank NiM and HM Ops and FPs for the Imp side guild. I also worked on my heal spec'd sorc, who also capped, and ran several runs of the dailies on Oricon on 8 different toons. Out of curiosity, I checked /played on that sage, 9 days, 13 hours and 20 minutes, and she's 65, and hasn't touched KotFE.

 

It's not like we didn't have threads about being overleveled for content back then, oh wait, we did. It's not like we weren't hearing about how easy it was to level back then, except that we were. The only thing we're not hearing now is how hard it is to keep both your's and your comp's gear current. Now we can reach the same plateaus of complaints w/out having to run the same side quests is also a difference, but in the end, the arguments are the same now as then: We're leveling too fast for the content.

 

We didn't use to overlevel anywhere near this fast if you played normally. I was usually one level over maybe two. Sure you could level fairly quick if you pulled out all the stops but the same guys who could do that can do that much faster now. It's not the same speed at all. And I never had the issue before that I was level 50+ on Taris. Was it possible to do that before? Sure if you did a lot of pvp and fp's you could manage that but it took a lot longer in play time to get there then it does now.

 

So I can't really agree with your assessment here.

[Deewe]

Sure, but SWTOR's core game from 1-50 is actually one of the stronger points of the game but in its current iteration it has lost a lot of its flair. I'd say, as usual, BW went too far in some things and not far enough in others.

 

**snip** but in the end, the arguments are the same now as then: We're leveling too fast for the content.

As too often BioWare is overdoing things. Adding QoL and mitigating a bit XP progression grind would have done the trick.

 

People where annoyed to have to redo the same world quest with every single character and there we are we don't need them anymore, even less heroics.

As mentioned above the issue is that the core content of the game is 1-50, rest is more a bonus as the story aren't as good later on and companions don't have their own path above 50 that much.

 

The default XP leveling rate should be back to what it was less say 20-25% less XP and then after you done 1 character on each side you could start using faster XP leveling on a voluntary basis. Lately on an alt I was already lvl 40 without even having unlocked my space ship. Speak of a nonsense.

[IanArgent]

There's a couple of "QoL" things they did tha tI don't really think they thought through all the implications of.

 

Faster leveling is one of them.

[AllisonLightning]

The default XP leveling rate should be back to what it was less say 20-25% less XP and then after you done 1 character on each side you could start using faster XP leveling on a voluntary basis. Lately on an alt I was already lvl 40 without even having unlocked my space ship. Speak of a nonsense.

 

Then you did something outside of even side missions and main quest. The only way you hit level 40 that fast is via the extras. Doing the respective faction FP at the appropriate level doesn't even get you that- what does is the scores of lower level players running FPs the moment they can. I've done my opposite faction LS vs DS character.

 

People are getting hyperbolic about levelling. Normally, I do main storyline only and have to end up picking extra quests here and there to avoid not getting underlevelled. I know a normal play experience does not get you to level 40 before unlocking your space ship without doing stuff that boosts your level faster than it should.

 

I'm not going to post what here but there are some very broken missions you can use that award XP far beyond their level. Then we've got presence and a dozen other factors contributing to a sense companions are OP- and it always falls back to the same argument I heard after 4.0 dropped- and people no longer needed to beg for assistance for most class quests, people don't have to group with you.

 

 

I group fully of my own accord, run FPs on my main for fun and I'll let everyone in on the secret- the old system made me resent the fact this game, with a decent story was an MMO- post 4.0, I love that there's other people and we can run content with each other. People group when they want to and changing that won't bring about a new magical age for this game. What I do think right now, is that if the diehard solo and group players don't find some common ground that we'll have the developers continue to break things on one side trying to help the other side until this game's unplayable.

[Damask_Rose]

What makes SWTOR easier than before in my view in leveling are the following:

 

Increased leveling speed.

More powerful companions.

 

They also reduced the health of trash mobs at the same time.

[robertthebard]

We didn't use to overlevel anywhere near this fast if you played normally. I was usually one level over maybe two. Sure you could level fairly quick if you pulled out all the stops but the same guys who could do that can do that much faster now. It's not the same speed at all. And I never had the issue before that I was level 50+ on Taris. Was it possible to do that before? Sure if you did a lot of pvp and fp's you could manage that but it took a lot longer in play time to get there then it does now.

 

So I can't really agree with your assessment here.

 

What does "play normally" even mean? To me, playing normally would be to have a planet done when I left. That means main story arc, planetary story arc, and any heroics on the planet, datacrons, when they were required, etc. Doing this alone would push me up past the level for the next planet, and then it compounded from there. So I'm sorry you don't agree with my assessment, but these forums will attest to the fact that your assessment is inaccurate, at best.

 

What about the people that include Black Talon or the Pub equivalent as part of the leveling curve? What about people that do PvP as part of the leveling curve? Do we have to ignore these because they don't fit into your definition of "play normally"?

Edited October 1, 2016 by robertthebard

[Tsillah]

What does "play normally" even mean? To me, playing normally would be to have a planet done when I left. That means main story arc, planetary story arc, and any heroics on the planet, datacrons, when they were required, etc. Doing this alone would push me up past the level for the next planet, and then it compounded from there. So I'm sorry you don't agree with my assessment, but these forums will attest to the fact that your assessment is inaccurate, at best.

 

You miss the point. Take whatever it is you do normally to level and look at how easy it is to do those same things now compared to the early days and how much xp you get. You get more exp now and it's easier to do for various reasons that have been mentioned.

 

To say that it's the same as before is inaccurate because it's not true.

 

What about the people that include Black Talon or the Pub equivalent as part of the leveling curve? What about people that do PvP as part of the leveling curve? Do we have to ignore these because they don't fit into your definition of "play normally"?

 

 

Again it doesn't matter. The only thing you can compare is what is normal for yourself. I tend to mix questing with some heroics, pvp and the occasional flash point. All these things give more xp to me for various reasons, ranging from the basic quest rewards to a variety of boosts in consumables, legacy unlocks and now this pioneer armour set from the dvl. To say that it's the same as 5 years ago is a simply incorrect.

 

Also doing the same story quests gives a lot more xp so I spend less time on gaining that xp. It's a simple math equation. Heroics I could in part solo back then but they are much easier now with good rewards in xp and gear. The gear makes it easier also. Companions are stronger. Story bosses have been nerfed. I can now solo flash points or do tacticals. All of this make it easier and faster to level.

 

Doesn't mean it's all bad but I do think they've gone a bit overboard with it. Luckily some of it is optional but a lot is just how it is now.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Tsillah

[Andryah]

They also reduced the health of trash mobs at the same time.

 

They also largely solved the gearing challenges as you level as well. There is little need to actually craft of buy gear as you level now days... though you can of course do so.

 

This game has been redesigned with 4.0 to make it easier for newer players to enter and ramp up in a matter of weeks rather then months or years in order to be at rough parity with veteran players. Some veteran players don't like this, but personally I think it is healthy in the long term.