A returning player point of view

[arunav]

Tell me this, do the dailies at Max level provide a challenge? Back in the day they did. I am not big on OP's and group content outside of some pvp.

 

As long as there is some kind of end game content other than Operations and Flashpoints, I'll be happy. I just wanted a little bit of something other than mobs dying in one hit. I have all these abilities, yet I can kill packs of mobs with Lacerate. It's disappointing. I don't feel like I'm progressing as much as I'm just going through the motions to get to max level.

 

As it stands right now, this leveling system isn't teaching players how to CC or manage CD's and it doesn't teach the player the importance of rotations and situational awareness which is required for harder content.

 

In short, it's not preparing them for the true end game portion of the game. Even me, whom is a solo player, knows that coming from other mmo's.

 

BW decided the true endgame for most players is making alts and spending CCs to dress them (and their strongholds) up. Nothing outside the story content matters much. And, with very little exception, your companion can complete the story for you.

 

The leveling game hasn't prepared players for group content like Vet or Master FPs, PVP, or Operations (any difficulty) in roughly 6 years (since 4.0/KotFE launched).

 

If the current PTS is any indication, 7.0 will either continue this or make group content itself, the PVE portion anyway, easier.

Edited August 14, 2021 by arunav

[Tulmara]

I just came back as well, and I'm astonished how easy it is to level. I did notice however, that when I sent my companion Khem Val out to do a crew skill the golden icon mobs killed me. They were around 5 levels below me on Dromund Kaas, and they still messed me up. So apparently having the companion healer does make a big difference against certain enemies.

 

Okay I will preface this with I haven't done dungeons since before the start of KotET but I'm of the opinion companions are better healers than players and can do far bigger heals. I don't think Bioware is concerned about this in the slightest as you can't use them in raids. What about dungeons though, are players getting kicked from them in preference of a companion healer in the group ?

[Zorii_Bliss]

For those complaining about levelling too fast and comps making things too easy...

 

Have you been playing with no XP boosts, whether Legacy perks or consumables?

 

Have you refrained from giving your comps any gifts and just capping influence progression to conversations (which don't get you very much)?

 

Tried disabling some of your comps heals or attacks?

Or setting it to passive and then manually triggering it's abilities after mapping some of them to keys/buttons?

 

Given you have outfit designer there's no need to have o-p gear on because it happens to be pretty, so your actual armour can be the trash from your starter planet or any under-levelled clothing or armour you find or buy along the way. Crafters make plenty of armour, item mods and weapons for you to handicap yourself with.

 

The game can be as difficult as you choose to make it, just try thinking,

[Tsillah]

For those complaining about levelling too fast and comps making things too easy...

 

Have you been playing with no XP boosts, whether Legacy perks or consumables?

 

Have you refrained from giving your comps any gifts and just capping influence progression to conversations (which don't get you very much)?

 

Tried disabling some of your comps heals or attacks?

Or setting it to passive and then manually triggering it's abilities after mapping some of them to keys/buttons?

 

Given you have outfit designer there's no need to have o-p gear on because it happens to be pretty, so your actual armour can be the trash from your starter planet or any under-levelled clothing or armour you find or buy along the way. Crafters make plenty of armour, item mods and weapons for you to handicap yourself with.

 

The game can be as difficult as you choose to make it, just try thinking,

 

I play with melee comps, by the time they do one hit I already killed all the mobs. Makes me laugh.

 

I do object to the whole concept of handicapping yourself just to make things harder. In the end it is what it is and I've learned to accept it, but I will say this: it used to be far more satisfying to beat story bosses while gearing up and leveling up to match that challenge. That made it feel like progress and you felt you were getting stronger. That's fun to me. Taking off stuff is only fun in certain occasions and they're not boss fights. I will admit that xp gain was not good in those days, but that's all they had to change for me. But apparently I'm in the minority so there's that.

[Darth-Obvious]

I play with melee comps, by the time they do one hit I already killed all the mobs. Makes me laugh.

 

I do object to the whole concept of handicapping yourself just to make things harder. In the end it is what it is and I've learned to accept it, but I will say this: it used to be far more satisfying to beat story bosses while gearing up and leveling up to match that challenge. That made it feel like progress and you felt you were getting stronger. That's fun to me. Taking off stuff is only fun in certain occasions and they're not boss fights. I will admit that xp gain was not good in those days, but that's all they had to change for me. But apparently I'm in the minority so there's that.

 

This is something MMOs will always struggle with as they continue to grow or time goes on. You'll have people that want to be able to get through the content faster whether because of alts or they want to get to the endgame or whatever. Then on top of that MMOs that are on a large scope and scale like SWTOR are trying to appeal to the widest possible audience and so MMOs generally avoid making the leveling process too difficult especially with older content as the game continues to move forward and grow.

 

Wildstar ran into this issue where they wanted their game to be more challenging than the average MMO which is fine if you want to make your game challenging, games like Dark Souls and what not have had great success with it, however you typically don't want to make your 100 million dollar MMO that needs a large audience in order to survive to challenging because a lot of the more casual players will bounce off it which is something that happened with Wildstar.

 

Games like Dark Souls enjoy great success but games in that style or genre don't usually have super huge budgets or need to audience a MMO needs in order to be successful.

 

With SWTOR you have the added element of the story and that there are many people playing the game just for the story which Bioware is aware of so they're not only going to want to appeal more to that audience but over time be more welcoming to new players.

 

SWTOR is basically selling or advertising itself as "Hey here's a game you can beat" which is very comforting to many people obviously not everybody but this is what MMOs generally are like especially the longer they've been around.

[Zorii_Bliss]

I play with melee comps, by the time they do one hit I already killed all the mobs. Makes me laugh.

 

I do object to the whole concept of handicapping yourself just to make things harder. In the end it is what it is and I've learned to accept it, but I will say this: it used to be far more satisfying to beat story bosses while gearing up and leveling up to match that challenge. That made it feel like progress and you felt you were getting stronger. That's fun to me. Taking off stuff is only fun in certain occasions and they're not boss fights. I will admit that xp gain was not good in those days, but that's all they had to change for me. But apparently I'm in the minority so there's that.

 

That doesn't answer the question about the influence level of the comp and how it's being progressed. I took a 16 Qyzen into the Balmorran Insectoid heroics and several times he couldn't deal with the sequence of interrupts that happened to his heals and I died a couple of times as my dps was similarly impacted by the interrupts and the level of damage outpaced the heals he was landing and the hits I was scoring (and I failed to use an escape or DCD in time - Doh!).

 

I'm sorry but it's a very weak argument for complainers to say the game's too easy because they insist on buying/gathering all the o-p gear they can, despite the fact that the look of a character is independent of that and gearing for stats is a choice. Gearing optimally is only "necessary" for meeting the most difficult aspects of the game's ultimate challenges, that's the only "mandate" to reduce the frustration of repeated failure or overly "long" struggles. If you know your enemy will wilt from a fusillade of 9mm fire why would you insist on using a 50 BMG or a minigun?

 

And switching off anything up to 6 tho' 1-2 would probably suffice... so immersion breaking and offensive to one's sense of entitlement that the game can't be played that way?

 

"Handicapping" was perhaps a poor choice of words as it plays to gamers' sense of entitlement as the immortal/unkillable hero of the story. How about "non-optimal gearing and stat building"?

[Zorii_Bliss]

This is something MMOs will always struggle with as they continue to grow or time goes on. You'll have people that want to be able to get through the content faster whether because of alts or they want to get to the endgame or whatever. Then on top of that MMOs that are on a large scope and scale like SWTOR are trying to appeal to the widest possible audience and so MMOs generally avoid making the leveling process too difficult especially with older content as the game continues to move forward and grow.

 

Wildstar ran into this issue where they wanted their game to be more challenging than the average MMO which is fine if you want to make your game challenging, games like Dark Souls and what not have had great success with it, however you typically don't want to make your 100 million dollar MMO that needs a large audience in order to survive to challenging because a lot of the more casual players will bounce off it which is something that happened with Wildstar.

 

Games like Dark Souls enjoy great success but games in that style or genre don't usually have super huge budgets or need to audience a MMO needs in order to be successful.

 

With SWTOR you have the added element of the story and that there are many people playing the game just for the story which Bioware is aware of so they're not only going to want to appeal more to that audience but over time be more welcoming to new players.

 

SWTOR is basically selling or advertising itself as "Hey here's a game you can beat" which is very comforting to many people obviously not everybody but this is what MMOs generally are like especially the longer they've been around.

 

Any of you peeps play tabletop RPGs with real life GMs? I'm from the gen that grew up in the early days of (A)D&D, Traveller, Space Opera, Bushido, Call of Cthulhu, Star Frontiers, Aftermath, etc. There was no frenzied dash of over-indulged snowflakes who had to be given +5 Defenders and +6 Platemail to keep them playing the game instead of calling Mom to collect them because Jonny wasn't being nice.

Sure the advantage of tabletop is it's all about the story and the "journey", the travails and the difficulties are managed by the GM to keep the challenge there. Here in MMORPGs each player has to be responsible for curating their adventure, which means being their own GM too. One would hope that in a world of educated people this wouldn't be so much of a stretch but it seems that it's easier to ***** about the problem they create rather than be responsible for playing the game in a challenging way. It's this entitlement that partly paints the game companies into the corner they're in for maintaining their properties (granted less so than perhaps the monetization of progress and barbie dolling).

[Ardrossan]

I'm sorry but it's a very weak argument for complainers to say the game's too easy because they insist on buying/gathering all the o-p gear they can

 

except no one said that in this thread and you're literally arguing with a strawman. Try reading the thread next time before ranting about the imagined arguments of "the complainers".

......................

The thread, for those paying attention, is OP giving their thoughts on things they like and don't like. No one's "complaining" or "making demands" or any other white knight buzzwords.

 

I've been here for 7 years and unlike most of the people on this forum apparently, I've learned that the devs will make changes based on what THEY want, and they don't GAF about forum feedback unless it agrees with what they were already going to. Hence the meltdowns on PTS. Meaning that IF they change the leveling process, it will be something THEY came up with, and no amount of forum crying will keep it from being implemented. And conversely, if they want to keep it as is or make it easier, they'll do that, and no threads asking for slower leveling or tougher story bosses will make a difference.

 

tl;dr: this forum is for players to uselessly complain and snipe each other, not to tell BW anything they don't already know or were planning to do.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ardrossan