Do you play as much as you did prior to 5.0?

[Lundorff]

I have been trying to leave for years, but I have always found my way back to this game in the end. And I am still here and playing ever so often, but I can feel my enthusiasm is waning. Prior to 5.0 I would often start a new character and play a lot of lowbie warzones, as I didn't feel punished for not playing end game. I could still accumulate comms and give level 65 a go with BiS when ever I felt like it.

 

Sadly that isn't the case any more, and spending time on more than 1 or 2 characters will simply leave you horrible gimped. But the problem is also that you can not really start a new character. Playing at level 70 with no set bonus and only a mishmash of gear is now downright painful, and it requires months upon months of playing catch up.

 

As such I find myself sticking to the one and only character at level 300 with reasonable good gear, but it is starting to get awfully monotone. At this point I would normally try a new character and mess around in lowbies for a while, but without the ability to gather comms, well, it feels kinda wasteful.

 

The end result will not be me leaving for a different game, but simply me leaving because I am bored.

 

So, are you still playing as much as you used to?

[DavidAtkinson]

The downisde to it is this stupid RNG grind system. I mean you make a character, level it to 70, then you grind your way to rank 300, equip 242 gear. Then you get used to it... you have good gear, play this character a lot.

 

Then after a while, boredom comes and you make another class. You get to level 70 and BAAAM You realise you have to go through all that pain again. You cannot buy even basic 230 armor set. You are forced to compete in warzones with crappy gear.. or spend zillions of credits on expensive mods and enhancements from GTN.

 

This system is totally alt unfriendly and it's one of the reasons I feel like losing interest. In the old system I always had enough comms to buy 208 gear.. no matter what.

[Coloneli]

Don't even play half as much as I used to.

[GUN_GAME]

Nothing changed for me to be honest. Yes, grinding gear was pain (got full BiS on my main toon), but i play most of my time on 1 character , and if i want to play other toon (what happens pretty rare) i enjoy my 232 bolster in wz.

 

So yeah, for people who like not to main 1 character, last expansion was a disappointment.

Edited March 30, 2017 by GUN_GAME

[Lundorff]

Nothing changed for me to be honest. Yes, grinding gear was pain (got full BiS on my main toon), but i play most of my time on 1 character , and if i want to play other toon (what happens pretty rare) i enjoy my 232 bolster in wz.

 

So yeah, for people who like not to main 1 character, last expansion was a disappointment.

 

People who only run the same toon should be mostly ecstatic about 5.0. Especially if their friends / guild are like-minded.

 

The 232 and soon to be 236 bolster is a joke. I viewed the gear of a random deception sin the other day, and they were about 3000 - 3400 in primary damage, and similar in the remaining stats. In comparison my own decep-sin is at 3800 - 4400 in primary damage and with equally better stats for the rest. Anyone who only rely on bolster will explode when pitched against BiS opponents (assuming equal skill level of course).

[AlCorazon]

Still play and WOW! My main has all 236, 2 240's and 2 242's yaaaaaaaay...i am not talking about my 3 alts.

5.0 was released when? Lol

[DerSchneider]

Still play and WOW! My main has all 236, 2 240's and 2 242's yaaaaaaaay...i am not talking about my 3 alts.

5.0 was released when? Lol

 

I know dat feel

[Stellarcrusade]

The downisde to it is this stupid RNG grind system. I mean you make a character, level it to 70, then you grind your way to rank 300, equip 242 gear. Then you get used to it... you have good gear, play this character a lot.

 

Then after a while, boredom comes and you make another class. You get to level 70 and BAAAM You realise you have to go through all that pain again. You cannot buy even basic 230 armor set. You are forced to compete in warzones with crappy gear.. or spend zillions of credits on expensive mods and enhancements from GTN.

 

This system is totally alt unfriendly and it's one of the reasons I feel like losing interest. In the old system I always had enough comms to buy 208 gear.. no matter what.

 

You are exactly right. 5.0 is the death of alts. They could fix it but they will have to do it soon, in that they should:

1.) GC levels/tiers should be legacy. Meaning if you gain a GC level on an alt, you are a level higher on the main and vice versa. It shouldn't be a character level.

2.) ALL currencies you gain from GC should be legacy bound.

3.) All character levels should earn all GC currencies.

 

The thing that made SWTOR great, head and shoulders above all other MMOs, was that you could fully gear up your level 65 by using alts so that you could step out onto the max level PvP battlefield with max gear the minute you got level 65. Thats part of why max level pvp is a joke now, its gear vs gear.

[t-darko]

Short answer to your heading, Lundorff, the answer is; No:(, but the decisive factor for me was 4.0 not 5.0.

 

It's my firm belief that the game lost a major part of it's soul with 4.0 and onwards . . .

Edited March 30, 2017 by t-darko

[Purgamentorum]

Short answer to your heading, Lundorff, the answer is; No:(, but the decisive factor for me was 4.0 not 5.0.

 

It's my firm belief that the game lost a major part of it's soul with 4.0 and onwards . . .

 

Totally agree.

[Kazz_Devlin]

Find myself playing less partly because of work and the other is this has become like a third job. Throw in unbalanced classes lopsided matches and Bioware's refusal to address these issue and well seriously seeing no reason to stay. kinda sad .

[Icykill_]

I used to play daily, anywhere from 3-8 hours of pvp. I worked out I'd only had a total of 7 weeks off in 5 years.

So that's 1776 days played

If we say I played about 5 hours a day, that's 8880 hours, but I believe it would be more than that.

5.0 made me stop playing for 8 weeks and since I've come back I've only played about 40 hours.

So to answer the question, yeah, 5.0 has made me play a lot less than before. I nearly unsubbed for good.

 

Edit : Even with those 40 hours I've been logged in, I would say a little over half was in pvp because of the long pops. The only pve I've done is to lvl a couple of new alts to lvl 10 to play pvp. Most of my time I've been waiting for pops.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Icykill_

[ThrakhathSpawn]

I have not logged into SWTOR since the "Command XP Event announcement", about two months ago.

[Icykill_]

I have not logged into SWTOR since the "Command XP Event announcement", about two months ago.

 

Why ?

[-Bob-]

I dont play as much as i did prior to 4.0

[OneHit]

I get what you guys are saying about alts.

 

You know what their response will be. Another dark vs light event.

[nate_river]

I get what you guys are saying about alts.

 

You know what their response will be. Another dark vs light event.

Don't say that

[Maegi]

I haven't played for around 3 or 4 weeks. I get bored with one toon and can't get anywhere if I play alts. Used to love toon hopping, now that actually hurts me if I do it.

[Lionflash]

I feel as though I'm playing a bit more than I used to. I know this is the PVP forum but after the removal of expertise I actually do a lot more PVE (FPs Uprisings, Ops) with all my characters that normally wouldn't because all I had were expertise gear.

 

Now I play all the other stuff across my alts in addition to pvp since I only need 1 gearset with some implants/earpieces to swap.

[Gebrakstkasten]

I think I'm playing about the same, but its not nearly as fun. I really liked playing my alts in 4.0. Now playing one toon is just a chore. Not sure how much longer ill stick with it. Hoping they come to there senses and bring back an alt friendly game.

[Lassebj]

Unpopular opinion time, I guess. I'm actually playing more than ever. I think the new gearing system gives you an actual incentive to keep playing and doing your pvp dailies, and I really don't see the gear giving people some massive unfair advantage... I really think a lot of people are getting the skills people who've played their class enough to get a full tier 3 set have acquired over time confused with a massive stat advantage.

 

Not saying there isn't an advantage, mind you.

[frosttj]

I've logged in once the last 2 months. A new grind system with no new interesting content at the launch of 5.0 has steered me away. I've glanced at this new patch with a new planet. If it feels like a 1 hour story line to set up a new operation, I'll probably play through it once and let my sub end this summer. I'll stay F2P until a new ranked season starts, and if there isn't some major overhaul by then, probably just hanging up the gloves. Was as good run, but there's enough other things out right now that I'm enjoying that I don't feel the need to come back to this same old song and dance.

[Stellarcrusade]

Unpopular opinion time, I guess. I'm actually playing more than ever. I think the new gearing system gives you an actual incentive to keep playing and doing your pvp dailies, and I really don't see the gear giving people some massive unfair advantage... I really think a lot of people are getting the skills people who've played their class enough to get a full tier 3 set have acquired over time confused with a massive stat advantage.

 

Not saying there isn't an advantage, mind you.

 

Most people played the classes enough before 5.0 was out to be quite good in PvP. A few class changes in 5.0 and you think those 4.0 experts need to play another 17,000 hours (time it takes to get full t3 set?) to be good at their class again?

 

You are right that some may be perception, but not much. Its mostly just gear versus gear now. The problem that is for PvP is that it doesn't matter how much is perception and how much is reality - the person who loses will just assume the other side is "all gear and no skill". If the game isn't fun, people leave, its that simple.

[mmmbuddah]

Nope. I like to play 3 main characters. And this system is just too much of a pain for that. I used to dual spec my scoundrel and vanguard, and carry 4 sets of gear. 2 pvp , 2 pve. But as of now that is not possible. So I am forced to play tank VG, healer Scoundrel, and dps GS. Which is really depressing to be honest.

 

So again, I hvae slowed down considerably, and will be cancelling my sub come the release of Morrowind for TESO. UNLESS there are some gigantic changes coming before june.

[teclado]

I don't think I've run a single warzone in about 2 months. So that would be a massive no. I log in every Sunday at 7pm for my HM op team, we go at it for two hours, then I log off.

 

--long wall of text incoming--

 

I used to play unranked quite a bit, at least 5 games or so every single day. Back in 4.x when the gear was cheap, I would play just about every class at 65: Mara, Sent, Vengeance Jugg, Madness Sorc, Arsenal Merc, Merc heals, Deception Sin, Tank Sin, Shadow, Tank PT, AP PT, Healer Sage, Skank Tank Jugg, Concealment Op, etc. You get the idea. Literally everything except Sniper / Slinger (I hate the cover mechanic).

 

Now, basically all that I have a snowball's chance of gearing (with my playtime) is about two characters. So I focused on my Mara and Merc healer. I run Merc heals on my guild HM op team, and I was trying to gear my Mara for pvp and as a backup dps for said HM op team. Turns out that in spite of getting rid of expertise, we still need two gear sets for dps and tanks. The PvE optimal stats perform rather mediocre in warzones. It's not just a matter of pulling a few enhancements, either. It's a large number of power augments vs alac/crit ones, on top of a large re-balancing of alacrity/crit/accuracy enhancements. It's totally different. Since the 236+ enhancements are much more expensive to pull nowadays, I'd burn through creds pretty quick. So I just gave up trying and stuck with the full on pvp set. Not gonna run ops with my Mara. If I have to dps, I'm better off just using my Merc in healer gear. Or am I supposed to just give up on pvp entirely and go full on PvE with my Mara? I've tried very hard to make it work somehow. I've run a bunch of warzones with 230 PvE gear (with and without much accuracy). I'm telling you, it sucks. It doesn't feel nearly as powerful. It's lame, and rather boring.

 

I was planning on getting my Mara to 300 command rank prior to next Tuesday, but that never happened. My motivation died a few months ago. He's sitting at 210. Merc Healer is around 133 I think, but I don't really care now. Since HM ops are going to drop 242, that's plenty good enough for my PvE healer. My Mara is just going to sit with his 230/236 mix for pvp (if I ever feel like running warzones again).

 

If we had legacy Unassembled Components, I would start playing all the alts again, and I would start having fun in warzones again. I'm one of those people who has to have variety. If I play one class constantly, I get bored and stop playing. Since you can only get components for the character you are playing, and since the grind is so long, playing anything but your main is a waste of time.

 

If gear is the carrot, then BW put the carrot so far out in front of me that I perceived it to be unattainable and gave up. I'm not stupid, and I have a life. Not going to waste it grinding harder.

Edited April 4, 2017 by teclado