Leveling speed

[JadenFlamearrow]

Ever since SoR was released leveling was drastically changed. It's too easy to level up now and I hate it. Side quests have basically been a way to just get one more level ahead of the planet's highest level recommendation. They increased the experience output way too much. I am fine with having KOTFE-KOTET give crazy amounts of experience to get from 60-70. But until you get to KOTFE I think that the experience output should be put to what is was at launch or at least reduce it a considerable amount. I am on my jedi knight finishing up my storyline on corellia. I'm level 60. This should not happen BioWare. I know this was intended but I am going to ask you to please fix it.

[IanArgent]

The leveling speed and level sync are a blunt-force method of making sure that no story-level solo content is ever too hard for a player. Functions as designed.

[Edyn]

My brother came back to play this game from a several year break and he quit again before he even got off Korriban. He told me over lunch on Thursday that it just wasn't fun to level so quickly that nothing poses any sort of challenge, even with level sync.

 

Makes me wonder how many others quickly quit over the lack of challenge in this game...

 

[casirabit]

I am going to disagree with you. I have over 12 characters that I have leveled. I do not ever want to do the side quests nor the planetary quests again. This way I can do the story quests and maybe some heroics without ever touching those again.

 

So I like the way it is done now so I never have to touch those again. Once on each side is enough.

[Andryah]

...until you get to KOTFE I think that the experience output should be put to what is was at launch or at least reduce it a considerable amount.

 

I disagree. Keeping the vanilla leveling curves that we had at launch just discourages new players from entering the game. Why? Because they see a daunting level of effort and time to even come up to where veterans are in content in the game.

 

Clearly.. it was deliberate to soften the leveling ramp from 1-50, so it's not going to be rolled back. Many MMOs in fact do this with their older content over time to make easier for newer players to catch up with veterans.

 

Right now... we have 250% XP event running, and you can get a token to turn it off now.. so .... turn it off, don't use XP boosts, or DvL gear, etc... and you will level at just about the right pace to enjoy all of your class story arcs. Just skip the planetary missions, and you will find the leveling curve without boosts or XP events to be just about right for running your class story progression. Besides, even if you over level a planet.. level sync takes care of that now.

 

There are a good number of things about this game that should be addressed by the studio... but I'm sorry... leveling pace is NOT one of them.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Andryah

[stoopicus]

For people like me leveling alts it's awesome. For new players it is pretty funny I imagine though. The current event XP rate is insane. In the last month I have taken six alts 0-70. /played averaged about 15 hours for each, and this was with just missions, not powerleveling.

 

For me, this is great. For a newbie, it might feel just a *little* weird to ding 30 before leaving Hutta. (That's not an exaggeration, btw. All of my recent alts got to between 25 and 30 on their starter worlds.)

[Edyn]

I think this could work for both types of players if the accelerated XP gain is turned off by default and then give players the option to manually turn it on with a /slash command or ability toggle similar to Sprint. This probably would have saved my brother from bailing so soon due to lack of challenge and other players can still choose to use the acceleration if they want.

[Lionflash]

Is it acquiring abilities too fast? Or the content too easy? Or both?

 

Legacy Perk: Story Experience

Reduces experience gain by (appropriate amount)% for some amount of time.

 

At what part of the story should we reach level 70?

 

(That's not an exaggeration, btw. All of my recent alts got to between 25 and 30 on their starter worlds.)

 

Just doing your class story?

 

 

As for making the combat harder, besides running into more mobs than you did at launch, can they make:

 

Legacy Perk: Heroic Mode

Increases Player Character aggro-circle radius by 200orsomething% for attracting enemies.

 

...so that the whole room or field engages you? That's kinda been an unpredictable but way of making things harder, does that make sense?

[stoopicus]

I did more or less all quests on the starter worlds, including heroics, and also lowbies PvP when it very infrequently popped. Starter worlds do not have planetary arcs that I know of, it's all the starter class mission. But to put things another way, between the entry cutscene on Korriban and running 100-200m to the mission area, I gained three levels. Edited April 2, 2017 by stoopicus

[Edyn]

...Just doing your class story?...

 

My brother was in the same boat and I believe he was doing everything, not just class story, since he hasn't played in a few years. He wanted to experience everything... just not in god mode, as that's just boring to him.

[LadyRoyalport]

While I agree with what most have written here about leveling up quickly to get to the end game Ops and what-not, I personally am one of those who don't like being level-synched on a starter world before I'm even on my way to Fleet. I like starting at lv 1, only doing story line quests and being lv 10 or lv 11 when I'm done and on my way to Fleet. I enjoy the casual leveling because I'm not in a rush. I don't do heroics or planet arcs intentionally so I don't out-level a planet before I'm done. I like a bit of a challenge fighting mobs and chapter bosses. With the current bonus XP event going on I have gotten the anti-XP crystal to use on my lower alts and I love it. My personal opinion is that the leveling rate should be dialed back by, say, 20% or so, to give us veterans some level of enjoyment that the game had during its first year, while allowing newer players a chance to level up a little faster if they want to do end game stuff. That's just my 2 cents worth.

[dxlolman]

Just play with a F2P account with no help from your sub account.

 

F2P are lucky (sorta) going though things slowly actually wear and use the things you pick up (instead of just using cartel market armor and weapons), asking for help for stuff (heroics, plain hard missions, gearing) that used to be the way to make friends.I remember my first level 50 way before RotHC/I subscribed it took me about 2 months to get it up there in that time I made 42 personal friends. But the old days are gone (sorta). We live like gods, Yet we want to be mortals.

Edited April 1, 2017 by dxlolman

[Battilea]

This is why there should be menu options that let you disable XP bonuses (guild, event, etc, and nope, not a stupid item that does it), and a slider that lets you adjust the xp gained. By default, people will level like they do now, which many people will probably want, but if you want to, you'd be able to slow yourself down and need the side missions to level. That or the ability to adjust the planetary cap downward could also do the trick, though has some potential issues (group content).

 

Of course, either way it wouldn't go back to how it was for a veteran player. Certain things got wussified, you've probably got a lot of presence bonuses, and probably other stat ones from datacrons as well.

[casirabit]

My brother was in the same boat and I believe he was doing everything, not just class story, since he hasn't played in a few years. He wanted to experience everything... just not in god mode, as that's just boring to him.

 

If he recently just came back we have a 250% xp bonus that has been going on for a bit which is expected to end just before the new patch in April.

 

That could be part of the reason he leveled so much as he didn't get the white acute module from the vendor when he got to the fleet so he could shut off the extra 250% xp.

[Zhedzaban]

I started levelling a new guardian not long ago, and he reached level 40 and hasn't finished Courscant to get his space ship yet. He will probably reach level 70 long before he finishes Act II. He is fully kitted out with xp boost gear, legacy and consumables so he is just basically doing story quests with the occasional warzone and flashpoint.

 

This is really not a problem, because one he reaches level 70 then he will start levelling cxp. The current levelling speed works because I no longer have to spend hours on Tatooine doing side quests just to get to an acceptable level to reach Alderaan. I can now do Alderaan first or Nar Shadda before Taris. Yes it feels fast and the levelling feels trivial, but the good far outweighs the bad imo.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Zhedzaban

[stoopicus]

I started levelling a new guardian not long ago, and he reached level 40 and hasn't finished Courscant to get his space ship yet. He will probably reach level 70 long before he finishes Act II.

 

For reference I've been hitting 50 on the capital worlds and 70 on Nar Shaddaa. I only do class missions, plus regular missions, heroics and exploration missions - no planetary arcs.

 

Grinding BT/Esseles I estimate you could hit 70 in 5 hours or so.

Edited April 2, 2017 by stoopicus

[Edyn]

If he recently just came back we have a 250% xp bonus that has been going on for a bit which is expected to end just before the new patch in April.

 

That could be part of the reason he leveled so much as he didn't get the white acute module from the vendor when he got to the fleet so he could shut off the extra 250% xp.

 

Definitely - he didn't even make it to Fleet. Once he made it into the 20's on Korriban, he told me he was out because it was so easy that it just wasn't fun.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Edyn

[Icykill_]

Some ways to address it are -

 

Nerf companions a little or -

 

Reduce experience earned a little or -

 

Make the veteran-master mode work in vanilla Swtor questing or -

 

All of the above.

[Cuiwe]

The problem is the lack of challenge, not being overleveled. Because such a thing as level sync exists, if a fair amount of challenge was present, you'd have that challenge. But! Super powerful companions, constant nerfing of challenge(various golds became silvers etc -> Just look at the Chancellors praetorians in the BH finale: They used to be 2x Gold, now they are 2x Silver), fast leveling etc.

 

But the biggest problem are companions imo. They are like SUPER effective and even I, a self admitted single player RPG connoisseur, think that they're too strong. And at levels 10-20 at that, I can't admit how it is with a companion rank 50 and all the Presence buffs(lol, scary). With that said, I ought to do something.

[Cuiwe]

Right, I tested the dps of my ~rank 10 Akaavi with my ~lvl 240 equipment character. Her dps is 2800 dps(give or take 10). It's not fabulous in the context of an Op, but during the leveling...such a character would have her full arsenal from the moment you meet it(meaning full dps in a full rotation), while you'd have an incomplete rotation. That's what makes leveling inconsequentially easy imo.

 

...and not to mention that I DO NOT have all the Presence buffs available and she IS NOT rank 50! If someone could test this with a full suite of presence buffs and a rank 50 on a dummy, that'd be nice.

[americanaussie]

Definitely - he didn't even make it to Fleet. Once he made it into the 20's on Korriban, he told me he was out because it was so easy that it just wasn't fun.

 

The hard stuff comes later. the leveling is designed to speed you through to get to the newer stuff faster. also, it's for story oriented people that may not be extremely combat skilled. I just did my second ops tonight and that was tough.

[Damask_Rose]

The hard stuff comes later. the leveling is designed to speed you through to get to the newer stuff faster. also, it's for story oriented people that may not be extremely combat skilled. I just did my second ops tonight and that was tough.

 

While extremely fast leveling through extremely easy content is good for some people, it is simultaneously bad for others. It is confusing to new players and discourages them from seeing all of the game, and it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. If someone doesn't have fun in the early part of a game they don't typically stick around to see if the game does a 180 later on.

[Opiezerker]

I pre-ordered and played from launch until very shortly after the free to play transition, promptly left and didn't look back. I decided to see what had changed in 5ish years. I rolled a new character after seeing my old ones inventory was full of augments, mailbox bull of companion gear little memory of *** was what... I was 70 in 3 days using xp bonus and only my class quest line. I had 6 at max level before I left and I don't remember it being this easy, and if its this easy whats the point?

 

Dumbing it down for the masses I get, but...

[Edyn]

The hard stuff comes later. the leveling is designed to speed you through to get to the newer stuff faster. also, it's for story oriented people that may not be extremely combat skilled. I just did my second ops tonight and that was tough.

 

The things is... he didn't want to be sped through and the fact that he was caused him to become bored with the game and so he quit before he even making it off the starter planet.

 

He played SWTOR years ago when the leveling speed was more normalized, so that was the experience he was expecting. He quit a short time after launch when he had his kid and he was ready to pick SWTOR back up again. Two weeks ago, I asked him twice how he was liking the game and his response was that he couldn't believe how quickly he was leveling and that the game is entirely too easy because of it. Last Thursday, I again asked him how he was liking the game and he said that he just stopped playing - that he leveled so quickly that it made the game so easy that it was just boring.

 

In addition to this, I was amazed at watching another RL friend play his first character. He's also an MMO vet, but had never played SWTOR. I watched him play his first character for an hour or two about a week ago and by that point he was already level 17 and still on Korriban just roflstomping everything - and this was his first time logging into SWTOR. Needless to say, he hasn't played since.

 

I don't know if it's just our generation (we're all mid 30's to early 40's and MMO vets with my brother and I playing MMO's since 1999) or maybe we're just not SWTOR's market audience, but I hate that I can't get my friends and family into SWTOR because it's just too easy for them and they get bored without even seeing a fraction of what the game has to offer. I mean, there's nothing wrong with little risk right as soon as you log into the game for the first time - it forces players to actually learn their class and learn the mechanics of the game as they progress in levels... not just learn how to use two or three ability buttons to wreck everything in sight all the way to 70 while they surf the net and catch up on the last season of Judge Judy.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Edyn

[Faylestar]

maybe we're just not SWTOR's market audience, but I hate that I can't get my friends and family into SWTOR because it's just too easy for them and they get bored without even seeing a fraction of what the game has to offer. .

 

As someone who has played MMO's for... a long time, unless I'm playing with a group of friends or its a game that doesn't backload massive amounts of content at max level, if I cant power through the irrelevant levels, I wont keep playing.

 

I wouldn't still play EQ if I couldn't level alts to 90+ in a couple hours. WoW would have been un-playable for new people/alts even by the end of BC if there weren't ways to level incredibly quickly. The Final Fantasies do the not-max level thing the best (because 11 was built to be multiple different grinds every couple levels) and even 14 has some heavy level and gear gating.

 

I have walked away from several new MMO's because they had the "its going to take many hours of play time to level up" without doing anything at each of those levels except grinding.

 

 

I started playing this game again in January, to play with friends, and had a couple 70's before the XP boost hit. With super boosted XP, if you ignore every side-quest (or ignore sidequests after starterplanet) and have the free XP boost consumable popped at all times, you will hit level cap somewhere between the end of Belsavis and the middle of Voss. Personally, that's fantastic, since Corelia is planet Backtrack.

 

As long as games treat pre-level cap as a tutorial, I'll be thankful for anything available to skip as much of that tutorial as I can. I mean, you can still go back and do it if you want.