Remove Level Lock from endgame content

[Spasi]

The main type of content i do is MM Flashpoints. I just recently did Objective miridian that's not level locked and it felt so much better. We need level lock GONE from all content above veteran flashpoints. It screws up melee damage which isnt fun. That messing up also makes carnage, that already ****, even worse. Losing 6k damage in burst window just because the content is level locked improperly is a horrible feeling. Please as soon as possible, remove level lock from MM FPs and all of the operation difficulties. I know the BIoWare team did this because they didnt have time to get everything up to level BUT i think 10 MONTHS are probably enough time to get it done. So please scale everything up or at the very, very least fix white damage while being level locked.

[Toraak]

They didn't do the level lock because they didn't have time to put every FP and Operations to max level. They put in the level lock so in future expansions it wouldn't be necessary to always bump up every Operation or FP to max level.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I have no issues with it the way it is.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Toraak

[Sundown]

They didn't do the level lock because they didn't have time to put every FP and Operations to max level. They put in the level lock so in future expansions it wouldn't be necessary to always bump up every Operation or FP to max level.

 

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I have no issues with it the way it is.

Well, it caps your stats. And it caps them in a way that you need different setups for capped and open content. And you need different setups for guild-perk/non guild-perk. And so on. That is just tedious.

 

I mean: sure, it is not "essential" to have the best values for capped content, but I hate waste and prefer to be geared as good as possible.

[phalczen]

Well, it caps your stats. And it caps them in a way that you need different setups for capped and open content. And you need different setups for guild-perk/non guild-perk. And so on. That is just tedious.

 

I mean: sure, it is not "essential" to have the best values for capped content, but I hate waste and prefer to be geared as good as possible.

I won't get into the guild flagship perk/non-perk point, as I actually agree with you, but it isn't affected by Level Lock because tertiary stats are not affected. There are certainly ways to accommodate that, for example by moving the some of your alacrity onto the Ear/Implants, to allow for easy switching.

 

The truth is the effect of changing the enhancements and mods is a minimal contribution. Yes, in theory, the BiS for all capped content regardless of class for the mod slot alone is a Warding 80R-20 mod. However, that is 366 points of defense rating per mod, x 9 mods, which is 15.11% defense chance. While Sages/Sorcs have a base 10%, bringing the defense chance up to 25%, the rest of the non-tank classes have only 5%, so a 20% total. But that's 20-25% of defending against direct melee/ranged attacks. That just doesn't happen often in raids, and of course pvp is not applicable because its not capped. The main thing that kills you in raids is unavoidable damage which is either mechanics, or force/tech, or both, neither of which can be defended against. Honestly, if you are getting shot by trash adds so much that you would otherwise survive if only you had 20-25% defense chance, someone in the group is doing something wrong.

I mean there are boss fights where trash is important ... Revanite Commanders is basically all trash for example. Izax has a lot of trash in certain phases. Maybe I'm underestimating the value of having a 25% chance to avoid blaster bolts from the Hull Cutter droids, but I just don't think its worth fretting over.

 

 

I select item modifications for my BiS sets based on the assumption that I will be doing a mix of capped and non-capped content. This is basically only really relevant for my tanks, where I might choose some higher health Warding B mods or enhancements over a pure mitigation build. I actually WILL use some of my spare high Defense Rating Warding mods for my "fun sets." Like, I'll use them in my taskmaster or victor's set because I wouldn't use those in any serious content like a HM raid or MM FP, but they would be find for planetary heroics. I might even try using Taskmaster in a scenario like The Eternal Championship, and there the extra defense chance might help a bit. I also use them in my KOTFE Ch. 12 "Attuned" weapons, because when fighting Arcann in Ch. 16 I'll be alone and the defense chance may help there too, plus of course its capped content.

 

It's easy enough to keep a DV/PF relic pair for capped content and an SA/FR pair for uncapped content, so the relics are no big deal.

 

So with the mod slot out of the way now, we're only talking the enhancements. Nimble and Initiative enhancements are fixed goals regardless, so that only leaves Critical Rating. It turns out that at usual critical rating budgets, so around 3k or so, using Efficient 80R-1 enhancements over using, say, Adept 80R-18s (which maximize power at the expense of crit rating), results in only ~0.5% difference in critical chance. Roughly, that translates into about a 0.21% damage increase over using Adept 80s, a difference that will only matter in capped content, because the uncapped content its a measurable dps loss. I looked at some parses for HM Dxun and 16k-22k dps is not unusual for that, so using Efficient R-1s there instead of Adept R-18s is like a 2.76-3.05% dps loss. So to me, the argument is clear: use the BiS enhancements. I keep Efficient R1-10s, just in case I'd ever do NiM ops, but edge they will give me is pretty small, so I focus on the BiS choices.

[Nemmar]

As pointed out, the level lock is in place so they don't have to re-balance everything with every expansion.

 

It is not an ideal situation, but it is a logical one from a development pov.

 

So, any suggestions you have, you should give them with regards to how to improve the system. Suggesting to remove it, is not helpful.

[JediQuaker]

Well, it caps your stats. And it caps them in a way that you need different setups for capped and open content. And you need different setups for guild-perk/non guild-perk. And so on. That is just tedious.

 

I mean: sure, it is not "essential" to have the best values for capped content, but I hate waste and prefer to be geared as good as possible.

You are correct. It's anything but 'essential' to keep trying to get the BiS for every little thing that comes up. That would seem to be more of a 'me' problem.

And it's "geared as well as possible" not "good as possible". 😏 🙂

[TheRandomno]

So with the mod slot out of the way now, we're only talking the enhancements. Nimble and Initiative enhancements are fixed goals regardless, so that only leaves Critical Rating. It turns out that at usual critical rating budgets, so around 3k or so, using Efficient 80R-1 enhancements over using, say, Adept 80R-18s (which maximize power at the expense of crit rating), results in only ~0.5% difference in critical chance. Roughly, that translates into about a 0.21% damage increase over using Adept 80s, a difference that will only matter in capped content, because the uncapped content its a measurable dps loss. I looked at some parses for HM Dxun and 16k-22k dps is not unusual for that, so using Efficient R-1s there instead of Adept R-18s is like a 2.76-3.05% dps loss. So to me, the argument is clear: use the BiS enhancements. I keep Efficient R1-10s, just in case I'd ever do NiM ops, but edge they will give me is pretty small, so I focus on the BiS choices.

 

The crit difference between an optimised capped and uncapped set is about 400, which is about 1.5% difference in crit chance.

 

I'm not doing Dxun at the moment so I have no reason not to be using a capped set.

[Spasi]

I don't really have an issue with the concept of level locking, but they did it improperly and melee/ranged damage specs suffer harshly. That is completely unacceptable i think. Marksman sniper is even more screwed than carnage mara cause at least mara has clashing blast. Let me put this into perspective. When i am not level locked with carnage mara clashing blast deals~50k damage with max hyper stacks. Gore and Vicious throw do slightly more. So one would think that if stats were capped, they would do damage equivalent of what it should do at a lower level. However it doesnt work. In MM flashpoints the difference is 33k clashing blast to 27k gore/vicious throw. That's a massive nerf of 6 to 11k damage per burst window. And its even worse for SM ops. I have seen a 10k damage deficit on a single skill. Granted could be relics but still. I don't wanna make this into another one of my carnage bad posts, but my aim is to get that fixed. If they removed it, i would be very happy but fixing it is enough for me.

[Spasi]

As pointed out, the level lock is in place so they don't have to re-balance everything with every expansion.

 

It is not an ideal situation, but it is a logical one from a development pov.

 

So, any suggestions you have, you should give them with regards to how to improve the system. Suggesting to remove it, is not helpful.

 

I can see the logic behind that. However them f*cking over white damage(melee and ranged) is very unacceptable. I already said that at the very least they should fix that and if they do i have 0 actual issues with level lock.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Spasi

[Toraak]

I can see the logic behind that. However them f*cking over white damage(melee and ranged) is very unacceptable. I already said that at the very least they should fix that and if they do i have 0 actual issues with level lock.

 

Then that just means they need to tweak Level lock. Doesn't mean the basic idea wasn't a good one.

 

As I said earlier it isn't perfect, and some tweaking may not be a bad idea, but as a whole I don't mind them level locking stuff. Each time they bumped up Operations to max level in the past, they always messed up the balance of them anyway.

[DeannaVoyager]

I can see the logic behind that. However them f*cking over white damage(melee and ranged) is very unacceptable. I already said that at the very least they should fix that and if they do i have 0 actual issues with level lock.

 

This^^.

 

Also I'd want to see guardian/jugg dps getting passive aoe damage reduction, so they would be viable for all content considering everything hits like a truck now in nim. It wasn't an issue before 6.0, so I'm guessing damage from bosses isn't scaled correctly in level locked content. Would be nice to raid with my main every once in a while...

[Spasi]

Then that just means they need to tweak Level lock. Doesn't mean the basic idea wasn't a good one.

 

As I said earlier it isn't perfect, and some tweaking may not be a bad idea, but as a whole I don't mind them level locking stuff. Each time they bumped up Operations to max level in the past, they always messed up the balance of them anyway.

As i said i can see the logic behind level locking so that they don't have to bump them up each and every expansion. I honestly didn't think of that at first, just though they are lazy. However the main issue is the white damage. If that is fixed i am happy.

[Sundown]

You are correct. It's anything but 'essential' to keep trying to get the BiS for every little thing that comes up. That would seem to be more of a 'me' problem.

And it's "geared as well as possible" not "good as possible". 😏 🙂

Might be a „me“ issue, but getting the best gear is part of the motivation to play, isn‘t it?

 

Are you sure about good vs. well in this case?

[Severith]

They just need to make all content level 75, then stop raising the level cap with every "expansion".

 

What's going to happen if there's another expansion? 80th level toons doing 70th level content, with even more chances to exploit the level gap with their gear, and probably more advantages for yellow damage and even worse output for white damage dealers.

 

The current system sucks, throw it away.