SWTOR is too easy now!!!

[UmbralSpirit]

Not everybody plays the same way.

 

That is true and iam using that line myself often however in group play one would expect that those who are participating are willing to play as a TEAM, maybe i spell the word wrong but there is no "I" in the word "Team".

The MMO gaming community has become extremly toxic in that regard (as someone said already using the example of "zerging") within the past 10 years or so, and the worst are usualy the DPS player, the reason you see a LOT more people playing DPS in MMO's these days instead of support classes is not because "leveling is faster" but because they don't want any responsibilities and that is reflected by the way they are playing their toon.

[Gokkus]

Well like the poster below you said, some people don't heal up because of the speed the group is going at. Another reason is that sometimes they simply don't need to... either because they strong enough not to need to heal up every time, or because they have some combat heals they can use in a pinch. Not everybody plays the same way.

 

If there are cases of people honestly not knowing how, sure, but I've never seen it.

 

It's no less nonsense than claiming that because the game had less healing, everybody knew how to play FPs better.

 

So you name a FP that is not tuned in line with the others and use that as your baseline? No wonder you think people are terrible.

 

 

So we're arguing based on bets now? That's pretty *********** silly. I know for a fact that I was dissuaded by it, as were a couple of others. Your not seeing visible complaints about it on the forums is meaningless, as complaints are not always vocalized on the forums. So far, the odds are not in your favor on this argument. And leveling pace is tied to difficulty. I didn't say it was only the XP gain. The flow of combat was also unappealing and it was irritating to me that the roles you got from companions were dependent on class, rather than giving you, the player, options.

 

 

Whatever you say. You said it doesn't teach you the basics, I was pointing out that it does give you the basics in the first 10 levels with no companion.

 

I keep hearing this thing about aggroing multiple groups of mobs and I don't know what version of SWTOR people are playing. Yes, if you're well geared and you aggro 2-3 groups of normal mobs, you can survive pretty well with a healing companion on you. If you mix in multiple elites (and especially multiple champions), that changes quickly. I'm getting kind of irritated at people continually exaggerating the power of companions. They are not invincible. They're just strong.

 

As for overleveling, it's not unavoidable. Don't know where you're getting that idea.

 

It is pretty easy overall to level right now: Yes. Companions are pretty strong: Yes.

 

But the exaggeration is over the top.

 

One of the things that people commonly miss in these discussions about dumbing down games that have been around a while is the statistics of a shrinking playerbase. The more players you have and the newer a game is, the more likely it is you'll have a higher number of MMO veterans whose skill cap is higher. As a game gets older and fickle veterans bleed into newer games, the number of veterans goes down overall. This impacts the feeling of an overall less skilled playerbase.

 

The belief that a difficult game magically teaches people how to play well is mostly superstition, motivated by a need to explain incompetent gameplay and feel like there is an easy solution for it. Becoming good at something takes time and dedication, which is something that a lot of players simply don't have or care to invest in. And the game hasn't been "dumbed game" all that long. So even if the difficulty did teach people how to be better, it would likely take years, plural, for the changes to start showing up in the average competency of the playerbase; about the same amount of time as it would take the average player to become good at the game before it was "dumbed down." Because it'd only be at that point that you could see realistically see the difference; the proof being the lack of a new wave of people reaching a moderate level of skill.

 

Whether they actually know or not isnt really relevant. I am talking about the people initiating combat when having half their health. A lot of people will recognize this scenario. I am very confident more people die now than they used to. Because they never die with their companion present they feel they can just charge into anything.

 

How is that untrue? Of course you are better at playing FPs when you know your class better, you know about survivability and when to use recover. I can handle people not being good at what they do, as long as they know what they are doing.

 

Depths of Manaan is a perfect example of what happens without basic knowledge. I.e. staying out of red circles, keeping an eye on your health and killing adds first. It also shows how quickly people abandon ship when things dont go easily.

 

OK fine, so you are telling me that you think SWTOR was too hard before? Really? And you quit the game because of this? Because else, youre stubbornly trying to defend something that is obviously not true. Focussing on how I bring my message is proof of your inability to dispute the point.

Role selection on companions is a completely different discussion.

 

If you do all purple quests and you move at a normal pace, you overlevel. This is not exaggeration.

You can easily agro two elites and not get anywhere near death. That is not exaggeration.

I HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN.

 

People are not asking for a hard game! People are asking for it not to be too easy.

The basics do not take that long to master. But if people do not have to learn it. Why would they? THAT is the problem. They have no incentive until they enter a FP, that is too late. It hurts game experience.

[robertthebard]

Whether they actually know or not isnt really relevant. I am talking about the people initiating combat when having half their health. A lot of people will recognize this scenario. I am very confident more people die now than they used to. Because they never die with their companion present they feel they can just charge into anything.

 

Sorry for the snip job, but based on what? Your perception? Let's take a look at this evaluation then:

 

The game is easier, so more people die now than before.

 

#Boggle

[Kaldron_Fell]

E) I'm not arguing the game's leveling isn't relatively easy, but... for the first (roughly) 10 levels, you have no companion and you aren't remotely unbeatable. In fact, that blood pool Korriban side quest is still pretty difficult to solo, if you haven't gotten your companion yet and you're the same level as the mission. It's not until you've already experienced the basics that you get the "I win button" companion.

Your other claims not withstanding, I call BS on this one particular issue. I read this at work and tested it right when I got home.

 

I made a new character (sith warrior) and did the quest as soon as possible (just reached level 8, only did one sidequest, the very first one), had empy armor (so armor rating 8), no xp buff, no guild membership, no special event armor, nothing.

 

I also did not use ravage or force scream, just assault, vicious slash and saber ward. I did not use any medpacks.

 

I kicked that beast's *** and still had two third of my HP. So please, how on earth is this difficult?

 

Edit: level 9, all of the above plus one medpack (the one you get right at the start), still no companion and Heroic 2+ Red Engine is done, too. Easy Peasy!

Edited October 4, 2016 by Kaldron_Fell

[IanArgent]

Side note: The last two TFPs I pugged were DoM and BH, and both went smooth as silk, though I picked up BH just before the second boss fight. The fights are all pretty mechanically simple tank and spanks, with relatively easily-explained and obviously-telegraphed mechanics (compared to, say, Directive 7's final boss stage, or even the various phases of Kilran's fight in Maelstrom Prison). Their difficulty comes from brute-force statistics of the bosses, and in DoM a tight enrage timer on the final boss (and the silly knockback's in Jos and Valk's fight in BH, I'll admit).

[Jamtas]

 

I do think that leveling 1-65 should be easy, going through the storylines should be easy, its the endgame parts that should be challenging, but the harder it becomes, the more elitist the hardcore raiders become, demanding the best players only and expecting everyone to know everything about it before you even do it....and that is just stupid and something that needs to change.

.

 

So I actually agree with much of your post - the leveling shouldn't force everyone into a too difficult scenario and since it is one size fits all - easier I can live with so others can enjoy the story aspect.

 

But what is quoted above I don't agree with. You are basically saying that you don't like the really hard core content that only a small % enjoy that they shouldn't have that option to have that challenge. As is the right of those that want an easy way to enjoy the content, I think there should exist a difficult tier that not everyone can do to give those that want the challenge the ability to do so.

[IanArgent]

So I actually agree with much of your post - the leveling shouldn't force everyone into a too difficult scenario and since it is one size fits all - easier I can live with so others can enjoy the story aspect.

 

But what is quoted above I don't agree with. You are basically saying that you don't like the really hard core content that only a small % enjoy that they shouldn't have that option to have that challenge. As is the right of those that want an easy way to enjoy the content, I think there should exist a difficult tier that not everyone can do to give those that want the challenge the ability to do so.

 

THE optional content already has multiple difficulty levels. As long as story mode can be pugged, it's all good

[Rolodome]

Your other claims not withstanding, I call BS on this one particular issue. I read this at work and tested it right when I got home.

 

I made a new character (sith warrior) and did the quest as soon as possible (just reached level 8, only did one sidequest, the very first one), had empy armor (so armor rating 8), no xp buff, no guild membership, no special event armor, nothing.

 

I also did not use ravage or force scream, just assault, vicious slash and saber ward. I did not use any medpacks.

 

I kicked that beast's *** and still had two third of my HP. So please, how on earth is this difficult?

 

Edit: level 9, all of the above plus one medpack (the one you get right at the start), still no companion and Heroic 2+ Red Engine is done, too. Easy Peasy!

The difference may be in the use of saber ward? I may be thinking of inquisitor attempts, where you have no defensive cooldowns at low level and you hit like a wet noodle as well.

[Rolodome]

Whether they actually know or not isnt really relevant. I am talking about the people initiating combat when having half their health. A lot of people will recognize this scenario. I am very confident more people die now than they used to. Because they never die with their companion present they feel they can just charge into anything.

 

How is that untrue? Of course you are better at playing FPs when you know your class better, you know about survivability and when to use recover. I can handle people not being good at what they do, as long as they know what they are doing.

 

Depths of Manaan is a perfect example of what happens without basic knowledge. I.e. staying out of red circles, keeping an eye on your health and killing adds first. It also shows how quickly people abandon ship when things dont go easily.

 

OK fine, so you are telling me that you think SWTOR was too hard before? Really? And you quit the game because of this? Because else, youre stubbornly trying to defend something that is obviously not true. Focussing on how I bring my message is proof of your inability to dispute the point.

Role selection on companions is a completely different discussion.

 

If you do all purple quests and you move at a normal pace, you overlevel. This is not exaggeration.

You can easily agro two elites and not get anywhere near death. That is not exaggeration.

I HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN.

 

People are not asking for a hard game! People are asking for it not to be too easy.

The basics do not take that long to master. But if people do not have to learn it. Why would they? THAT is the problem. They have no incentive until they enter a FP, that is too late. It hurts game experience.

I feel like this is devolving into contradiction, rather than argument. I'll respond to one or two points, where I think there's something new to actually say:

OK fine, so you are telling me that you think SWTOR was too hard before? Really? And you quit the game because of this? Because else, youre stubbornly trying to defend something that is obviously not true. Focussing on how I bring my message is proof of your inability to dispute the point.

Role selection on companions is a completely different discussion.

I never said it was "too hard." I said the difficulty of the leveling was irritating/boring because it took too long and I didn't like the flow of combat. And yes, I distinctly remember having a character in his 20s and quitting because the leveling felt like a slog. If you want to get technical, you can say that it was "too hard" in sense that it was hard enough to dissuade me from the game. The reason I say no about too hard is that it wasn't too hard in the sense of not being able to progress. It's just the difficulty and the style of it detracted from the experience for me, for the most part.

 

Also, I want to address Manaan briefly: What red circles and what adds? The adds on the second boss that spawn after his flow thingy? If by circles, do you mean the globs of gray goo that the same boss drops on the ground?

 

If you want to blame something, blame the fact that most of the FPs can be half-derped through with a team of 4 DPS. In the main, the issue with this is the usually out-of-the-blue moments where you suddenly can't derp and you need killer reflexes to survive as a DPS without any dedicated healer on you, often through the cycling of kolto. The second boss in Manaan is one of those moments.

 

This is BW error, not player error. They are the ones who allow a group of 4 DPS to happen. With a dedicated tank and healer, most of those out-of-the-blue moments would be a lot easier overall. The risk associated with making mistakes would be a lot lower. Don't blame the players for not being prepared to handle mechanics that BW originally designed for a trinity and didn't properly rebalance for a bunch of squish bag DPS.