Make the game harder during class stories

[Leland_SmokeZz]

This has gone too far. You are genuinely hurting your game. No one wants it to be this easy. Something has to be done and it is within the development team's ability to change. Please. People love to return to swtor and play these stories on occasion, making this content more fun and challenging would like reward the dev's with a more interested and committed fanbase who are more likely to continue playing. It is SO easy rn that even the most casual of players could not possibly struggle at any point, ever. You can auto attack everything to death. You can go to sleep facing away from an enemy and it will literally attack you all night long while your companion heals you. This is unacceptably lazy. Even veteran flashpoint difficulty has you not losing any health due to companion heals.

Yes. I could limit myself artificially to have more fun, which uh, ruins the fun. Players should not have to limit themselves to give even a semblance of challenge. Rewards do not feel earned, power does not feel like power. Weakness is impossible. There is 0 argument to be made that it should remain this way. Consider a large update revamping combat difficulty in the game, or you will forever be relegated to being a boring leveling experience. To be fair, the stories are great, which is where people get their fun, but the combat in between these cut scenes could be so much more. Swtor plays well, it is genuinely fun, SHOW that to the player during their leveling experience and maybe they will stick around longer than 30 levels.

[denavin]

No!

[sundancebill]

You have a point.   I don't know how the devs control strength of characters but they could raise them all up a couple notches and their HP 

up some as well so that when you use a multi-blast area attack the mobs didn't just all die in one blast.

As well make the story bosses at the end of character arcs  top level elites instead of second tier. 

I see people playing without companions occasionally or you could try playing naked or with bad weapons  to make it harder.

 

 

 

 

 

[Leland_SmokeZz]

26 minutes ago, sundancebill said:

You have a point.   I don't know how the devs control strength of characters but they could raise them all up a couple notches and their HP 

up some as well so that when you use a multi-blast area attack the mobs didn't just all die in one blast.

As well make the story bosses at the end of character arcs  top level elites instead of second tier. 

I see people playing without companions occasionally or you could try playing naked or with bad weapons  to make it harder.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, frequently I do this, but knowing I am limiting myself and others can progress faster etc, really bothers me. I am not some elitist player who NEEDS to be the most effecient and/or best, but it would simply be an all around better experience to not have to do this. Also I really like having my companion with me, for story, they interject in conversation and speak in the world and in general its just nice to have them around. And getting gear is a huge element of mmos, removing that entirely from the leveling experience by playing naked is just as intrusive, this issue is actually massive and has been overlooked for far too long. 

[sundancebill]

2 minutes ago, Leland_SmokeZz said:

Yeah, frequently I do this, but knowing I am limiting myself and others can progress faster etc, really bothers me. I am not some elitist player who NEEDS to be the most effecient and/or best, but it would simply be an all around better experience to not have to do this. Also I really like having my companion with me, for story, they interject in conversation and speak in the world and in general its just nice to have them around. And getting gear is a huge element of mmos, removing that entirely from the leveling experience by playing naked is just as intrusive, this issue is actually massive and has been overlooked for far too long. 

It's pretty obvious that the devs  have been on a mission to dumb down the game for awhile so i doubt they will be keen on making it harder.

[Goreshaga]

What's fun for someone may not be fun at all for someone else.

I personally don't play this game to bang my head against walls over it being super difficult, and when ennemies take to long to kill it becomes physically painful for me, so nope, i'm against raising the difficulty for everyone.

I'm all for people asking to have an OPTION to make it more difficult for themselves without affecting the ones who want the game to be easy though.

[Stradlin]

26 minutes ago, Goreshaga said:

What's fun for someone may not be fun at all for someone else.

I personally don't play this game to bang my head against walls over it being super difficult, and when ennemies take to long to kill it becomes physically painful for me, so nope, i'm against raising the difficulty for everyone.

I'm all for people asking to have an OPTION to make it more difficult for themselves without affecting the ones who want the game to be easy though.

 Plenty of room between two extremes  -  things don't have to be either modern day TOR or Dark Souls.

For vast majority of players, TOR is basically class stories+some solo or story mode  FPs and that's about it. Therefore, for vast majority of players, dififculty or challenge isn't really present at all.  It is bit sad when every sith lord and ancient horror folds so quickly that you don't even have time to learn mechanics. Either boss encounter or your own rotation. And eh why even try to learn anything like that? Its not like encounters would reqire it. Nothing about class story requires people to actually learn the  class. During class stories, there's tons of combat and all of it is completely irrelevant.

 

 

Generally speaking, gamers been drowned in "story mode difficulty" for at least 10 years now. For ages now, stuff like RPGs been kinda designed with philosophy that combat and challenge isn't there to test player, it is there to lose to player as fast as possible. It is kinda encouraging to see more and more signs of lots of folks being sick of this. Dark Souls and most certainly Elder Ring are very unforgiving, and huge hits for it. WoW Classic and its upcoming hardcore mode are huge hits, difficulty and stakes having a whole lot to do with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Stradlin

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

4 hours ago, Goreshaga said:

I'm all for people asking to have an OPTION to make it more difficult for themselves without affecting the ones who want the game to be easy though.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise.

Give the option to increase difficulty for class stories and leveling (non-group content) and just keep present difficulty (or lack there of) as default for those who would not like to see their story-play increase in difficulty.

Win/win.

[Bigfallenstar]

2 hours ago, Stradlin said:

 Plenty of room between two extremes  -  things don't have to be either modern day TOR or Dark Souls.

For vast majority of players, TOR is basically class stories+some solo or story mode  FPs and that's about it. Therefore, for vast majority of players, dififculty or challenge isn't really present at all.  It is bit sad when every sith lord and ancient horror folds so quickly that you don't even have time to learn mechanics. Either boss encounter or your own rotation. And eh why even try to learn anything like that? Its not like encounters would reqire it. Nothing about class story requires people to actually learn the  class. During class stories, there's tons of combat and all of it is completely irrelevant.

 

 

Generally speaking, gamers been drowned in "story mode difficulty" for at least 10 years now. For ages now, stuff like RPGs been kinda designed with philosophy that combat and challenge isn't there to test player, it is there to lose to player as fast as possible. It is kinda encouraging to see more and more signs of lots of folks being sick of this. Dark Souls and most certainly Elder Ring are very unforgiving, and huge hits for it. WoW Classic and its upcoming hardcore mode are huge hits, difficulty and stakes having a whole lot to do with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone here remembers when SOV came out and everyone was complaining about the enemies doing so much damage and how they couldn't get past one mob even if their companions were set to heal? And that one boss who's punch attack took nearly all of the player's health in one hit? Yeah, nobody wants that for their story mode experience. The people in chat proved it that day. Nobody wants Dark Souls level, or WoW classic level, difficulty and heal after one hit. Not for story mode where the enemy is only supposed to give you marginal problems. Dying to a boss? Yes, it happens from time to time. But nobody wants to die 10+ times to the same boss over and over again. That's not a challenge, that's beating your head against the wall. Otherwise, people wouldn't leave an operation after one wipe. It's story mode, not a nim raid. It's about you going from some nobody to the most dangerous whatever class you play. If they wanted an experience were they are repeatedly put through the ringer, they'd go play Dark Souls.

[ThanderSnB]

Yeah, it shouldn't be one difficulty for everyone. There should be different options. Maybe five options:

• Normal - current difficulty in the game
• Hard - Your character takes 25% more damage and companion heals are 25% weaker.
• Harder - Your character takes 50% more damage and companion heals are 50% weaker.
• Hardest - Same thing but 100% more damage taken, etc.

The numbers might need to be adjusted, but that would be the basic idea. It would be a debuff on the player. It wouldn't change the mobs, so that players that want it easier could keep it that way. They could add achievements to finish all the class stories and expansion stories on each difficulty. Maybe give lower difficulty achievements automatically if you finish the higher difficulty.

The difficulty setting would be set by right-clicking your portrait. They could call it something like Open World Difficulty. In groups, the group leader could set the difficulty for the whole group, overriding whatever the individuals set before. This would allow friends to make heroics harder for example, or operations groups could try world bosses on a higher difficulty (though other players outside the group could still attack, no way around that).

[Stradlin]

2 hours ago, Bigfallenstar said:

Anyone here remembers when SOV came out and everyone was complaining about the enemies doing so much damage and how they couldn't get past one mob even if their companions were set to heal? And that one boss who's punch attack took nearly all of the player's health in one hit? Yeah, nobody wants that for their story mode experience. The people in chat proved it that day. Nobody wants Dark Souls level, or WoW classic level, difficulty and heal after one hit. Not for story mode where the enemy is only supposed to give you marginal problems. Dying to a boss? Yes, it happens from time to time. But nobody wants to die 10+ times to the same boss over and over again. That's not a challenge, that's beating your head against the wall. Otherwise, people wouldn't leave an operation after one wipe. It's story mode, not a nim raid. It's about you going from some nobody to the most dangerous whatever class you play. If they wanted an experience were they are repeatedly put through the ringer, they'd go play Dark Souls.

 

You're pretty eager to speak on behalf of  everybody else. "nobody wants this, everybody wants that" It is kinda impressive feat to manage  In a thread where OP is asking things that, according to you, are asked by nobody. 

As I said in the first sentence of the post you quoting, there's plenty of room between two extremes here.  Realistic possibility to mess up and fail has been a core aspect of games since we've had games. Digital or otherwise.  Makes not messing up, not failing fun and rewarding.  Having that  going doesn't quite render your game into a dark souls just yet.

 

When every single boss fight offers 0 challenge, it is very difficult to have any cool, memorable fights at all.   There are no obstacles of any kind to deal with, just a flat surface. Actual game mechanics&fights you have from starter planet to end of storyline don't offer many memorable moments.  How could they, when nothing matters, nothing kills you and you basically need to do learn or do nothing to get past almost everything. It can be said, with no hyperbole involved, that navigating from cantina spawn spot to instance of the boss is  more difficult and unforgiving than any bossfights you encounter. Compared to dozens of encounters with sith lords, jedi masters, succesfully inserting password and security key are the true unforgiving Dark Souls experience  of SWTOR. Again, I kinda wish I were joking here. With security key, you have 30 seconds to insert six numbers. Each number must be correct, and they must be given in correct order. How many storyline boss fights offer as unforgiving an environment as that?

 

 

In some very universal sense, it is kinda encouraging to see a shift in trend here. Lots of folks want their single player games to be dififcult again, Elden Ring is selling like hotcakes.  When Classic WoW re-released, it was the most hyped MMO launch of recent memory, heh.  Now that Blizzard is preparing to launch a hardcore perma death mode, same thing is about to happen again. Lots of folks feel a longing for challenge and higher stakes.

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Stradlin

[Goreshaga]

6 hours ago, Stradlin said:

 Plenty of room between two extremes  -  things don't have to be either modern day TOR or Dark Souls.

For vast majority of players, TOR is basically class stories+some solo or story mode  FPs and that's about it. Therefore, for vast majority of players, dififculty or challenge isn't really present at all.  It is bit sad when every sith lord and ancient horror folds so quickly that you don't even have time to learn mechanics. Either boss encounter or your own rotation. And eh why even try to learn anything like that? Its not like encounters would reqire it. Nothing about class story requires people to actually learn the  class. During class stories, there's tons of combat and all of it is completely irrelevant.

 

 

Generally speaking, gamers been drowned in "story mode difficulty" for at least 10 years now. For ages now, stuff like RPGs been kinda designed with philosophy that combat and challenge isn't there to test player, it is there to lose to player as fast as possible. It is kinda encouraging to see more and more signs of lots of folks being sick of this. Dark Souls and most certainly Elder Ring are very unforgiving, and huge hits for it. WoW Classic and its upcoming hardcore mode are huge hits, difficulty and stakes having a whole lot to do with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is why an OPTION to either keep it the way it is for people who like their game easy or have some physical limitations, while allowing people who want to play it on an harder level of difficulty is the best way to do it, rather than making the whole game more difficult for everybody.

There are several ways they could do that, some could even be combined :

• One or several items that would work in a similar fashion to the WAM and debuff the player so that their companions are less effective, they do less damage and take more damage in return (could be one that give a 25% debuff, one that gives a 50% and one that gives a 75% one for instance, so that people can adapt the game to the level of difficulty they want).
• Various instances of different difficulties on each planets, these would work in a similar way to the PvP instances, ennemies would be more difficult to beat in these instance,
• They could allow players to set different lvl syncs for themselves, so that the lower you set it the less forgiving it becomes by scaling the player to a lower level, so that some ennemies would actually be of a higher lvl than the player, by scaling the player permanently to the planet's lowest lvl for instance.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Goreshaga

[SteveTheCynic]

3 hours ago, Bigfallenstar said:

Anyone here remembers when SOV came out and everyone was complaining about the enemies doing so much damage and how they couldn't get past one mob even if their companions were set to heal?

No, I don't remember that at all.  I remember *some* people complaining about that, and others complaining about the various bugs preventing us from progressing from one ship to the next, and I remember going through it the week it released and only getting stopped by one room, the one after the kitchen, where I managed to aggro half the room (but that was *my* fault, not BioWare's).  I went back and took it more slowly and no problems.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

I'll add a vote for the OPTION to change the difficulty.

There is no reason to make players who prefer easier story content (for whatever reason) to work harder or have to stop playing.  I'll go one step further and suggest that they can make things even easier if they add options.  (game as is = easy, then add in very easy, normal, hard, nightmare)

I'll run with a passive companion and undergeared to make things a shade more challenging.  That's my choice and harms no one.

Giving players more choices for the difficulty level of story content is fine, but it has to be a choice and not forced on everyone.

[Ardrossan]

I'm also for increased difficulty, but I do think there's a good point being made that bioware doesn't know how to do that in a way that is actually enjoyable. Increased difficulty in kotfe frequently just means longer encounters, same with many of the newer story FPs. They don't know how to find the balance, even when we're just asking for something that used to be the default back in 2.0. It didn't always used to be like this. While many people can point to content that ought to be difficult like the Emperor in the JK storyline, even the starter planets used to be pretty difficult when you were just starting out and didn't know what you were doing--I remember being on a trooper and dying so often on Ord Mantell that my armor completely broke down. Trooper was one of the harder classes to play because it took so long to get your first companion. But now when you do starter planet stuff, you can get shot repeatedly and it does almost no damage. 

The WAM can help a little bit with this, but even being 4 levels under doesn't make too much difference--I did this on an Agent recently and Hunter was still a pushover, and unlike many of the other finale bosses, he wasn't affected by starter planet level sync. 

[Ardrossan]

5 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

No, I don't remember that at all.  I remember *some* people complaining about that, and others complaining about the various bugs preventing us from progressing from one ship to the next, and I remember going through it the week it released and only getting stopped by one room, the one after the kitchen, where I managed to aggro half the room (but that was *my* fault, not BioWare's).  I went back and took it more slowly and no problems.

That's another thing. Bioware frequently confuses mob density and respawn time with difficulty. As you mention, SOV was only difficult because a) game breaking bugs and b) the risk of accidentally aggroing multiple mobs in the same room. Makeb used to be like that, and Ruhnuk is like that now, mobs will respawn in open world seconds after you kill them sometimes forcing you to fight the same enemies over and over again if you don't get a move on. That isn't enjoyable. It's just a chore. 

What I would like ideally is the difficulty level presented by Section X's Aurora Cannon (for story boss encounters) and Oricon's open world questing difficulty (for all other instanced story content). They can both be very challenging not so much because of mob density causing aggro (though it's a factor in some areas) but because the mechanics make it challenging: many of the mobs hit harder and use knockbacks, stuns and AOE attacks that can very quickly cause wipes if I'm not careful. I also think that story bosses would benefit from having unbreakable tags added (I think that's what it's called) so they can't be stunned or pushed; I often find those enemies to be the most challenging in open world. 

Increased difficulty would require some tinkering to instanced story content that could be adjusted as an option like KOTFE's difficulty sliders. What I don't want is default vanilla combat vs master mode, or default vanilla vs Ruhnuk-style combat. And I'm afraid that's what we would get because bioware doesn't know how to do anything else anymore.

[xxSHOONYxx]

Game at the beginning taught people how to play, things were harder, heroics actually required 2 or 4 people. Most story bosses were still health sponges (common for the time it came out) but it taught you to use dcds and interrupts and proper rotation.
But then they decided to make everything a snooze fest, remove every single mechanic from sm ops or flashpoints and your companion can do the story for you.

The average level of swtor players now is straight out pathetic, with the average being higher on darth malgus, and a big part of that is not their fault but the game itself for being so dumbed down, they don't even know the basics. Then ludicrous things happen, like you see those same people going into pvp when the game didn't teach them how to play vs other people that played for years and know how to play and they think they are cheating or the old players gets upset at how bad they are, or go into an op/fp and they think that 4 more iRating levels will make them do 3-4x more damage than they are doing now and complain about 340 gear and thinking mechanics in a r4 sm op are "unforgiven" or the experience players get frustrated at how they aggro everything or doing everything wrong.

It's night and day compared to ff14, ff14 even on the easiest difficulty mechanics can kill you, and then you have an option to increase your health/damage if you die. FF14 teaches their players to play their game.

I read something some time ago that games now with microtransactions and real money stores tend to be made easier on purpose to accustom players to get everything NOW with no work into it, and then the devs put roadblocks on purpose on something in game or only on the game store so the moment they find the minor inconvenient or something to work towards they instead are more likely to open their wallet and purchase it off the store.  
 

Edited May 21, 2023 by xxSHOONYxx

[Leland_SmokeZz]

1 hour ago, xxSHOONYxx said:

Game at the beginning taught people how to play, things were harder, heroics actually required 2 or 4 people. Most story bosses were still health sponges (common for the time it came out) but it taught you to use dcds and interrupts and proper rotation.
But then they decided to make everything a snooze fest, remove every single mechanic from sm ops or flashpoints and your companion can do the story for you.

The average level of swtor players now is straight out pathetic, with the average being higher on darth malgus, and a big part of that is not their fault but the game itself for being so dumbed down, they don't even know the basics. Then ludicrous things happen, like you see those same people going into pvp when the game didn't teach them how to play vs other people that played for years and know how to play and they think they are cheating or the old players gets upset at how bad they are, or go into an op/fp and they think that 4 more iRating levels will make them do 3-4x more damage than they are doing now and complain about 340 gear and thinking mechanics in a r4 sm op are "unforgiven" or the experience players get frustrated at how they aggro everything or doing everything wrong.

It's night and day compared to ff14, ff14 even on the easiest difficulty mechanics can kill you, and then you have an option to increase your health/damage if you die. FF14 teaches their players to play their game.

I read something some time ago that games now with microtransactions and real money stores tend to be made easier on purpose to accustom players to get everything NOW with no work into it, and then the devs put roadblocks on purpose on something in game or only on the game store so the moment they find the minor inconvenient or something to work towards they instead are more likely to open their wallet and purchase it off the store.  
 

Yeah this is my exact point, swtor is suffering from years of updates making it worse. The game used to be challenging at least occasionally, now you can pull the entire zones worth of mobs and aoe them down without a second thought. Horrible class power creep with no pve stat padding to compensate.

[Spikanor]

i think the main problem is more the exp rewards we get from missions that are to much that we always overlevel the planet level.

most of the old players know that back then the exp rewards from missions was low and that you need to compleet some side missions or heroic's to reach the next planet min level.

and it was also hard in the story line that you most upgrade your gear always and have a lot of medic pack's with you and sometime's buffs with you to use.

 

i think there need to chance the exp reward system more back how it was before the chance that you need to work to compleet things and not can do things so easy like now.

[Toraak]

13 minutes ago, Spikanor said:

i think the main problem is more the exp rewards we get from missions that are to much that we always overlevel the planet level.

most of the old players know that back then the exp rewards from missions was low and that you need to compleet some side missions or heroic's to reach the next planet min level.

and it was also hard in the story line that you most upgrade your gear always and have a lot of medic pack's with you and sometime's buffs with you to use.

 

i think there need to chance the exp reward system more back how it was before the chance that you need to work to compleet things and not can do things so easy like now.

I'll be honest, I'd hate having to go back to the old leveling process. If the problem is that we're always overlevel,

 

While I wouldn't mind some more challenge to the story missions, I think the best way for BW to do that would be an option for it, but have it only affect the class missions that have an instance to them. Changing the challenge difficulty of open world just wouldn't be worth it. 

[Spikanor]

10 minutes ago, Toraak said:

I'll be honest, I'd hate having to go back to the old leveling process. If the problem is that we're always overlevel,

 

While I wouldn't mind some more challenge to the story missions, I think the best way for BW to do that would be an option for it, but have it only affect the class missions that have an instance to them. Changing the challenge difficulty of open world just wouldn't be worth it. 

i have some old chars left from back of the day's before there have chance the exp reward from missions.

some are still lvl 50 or lower but the one's that are lvl 50 have compleet there story line but since there have buff the exp rewards a lot there have become all useless to play.

since the new chars reach lvl 70 or so now a day's when there compleet there story line missions.

that means there fight with lvl 70 or higher skills or buff's against a level 50 story line boss.

and since you can chance you companion to healer,tank or attack the story line missions have become more easyer then it was since if you set it on healer you not need the medic packs anymore or buff packs.

what i mean more is by this is that things need to become easyer and easyer now a day's since some people not wane do some work if there wane reach something.

that means for this problem more people wane reach so fast as it can to max level since there not wane put a lot off work in to like most of us have done in the old day's.

[Diamaht]

Always this talk about the "option" to do this or that.

Gamers don't think or act that way.  When they log in they will play the default settings.  If those are enjoyable they stay.  If they are not they leave.  You will not rationalize some other behavior for them.

If more people are joining then leaving, your defaults are good.  If more people are leaving then joining then you need to change them.

The population growth settings should be the default, the population decline settings should be your "options."  Then everone is covered and the game grows.

Help this game or watch it die, your choice.  Up the challenge and definitely nerf the companions.

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by Diamaht

[LD_Little_Dragon]

24 minutes ago, Diamaht said:

Always this talk about the "option" to do this or that.

Gamers don't think or act that way.  When they log in they will play the default settings.  If those are enjoyable they stay.  If they are not they leave. 

 

That's a weird way to put things. 

Single player games pretty much always have difficulty settings.  It's normal, it's expected.  Swtor story is more like a single player game then an MMO.

I've been looking at game settings and difficulites and adjusting them to my liking for almost forty years.  Are you claiming most people who play video games never adjust the settings at all?

[ReveredDead]

I like the way this game is set up. They're story quests, they're meant to be easy. You want hard. Go play Master mode flashpoints or veteran/NiM raids. Not everyone who plays this are hardcore masochists. 

[Spikanor]

36 minutes ago, ReveredDead said:

I like the way this game is set up. They're story quests, they're meant to be easy. You want hard. Go play Master mode flashpoints or veteran/NiM raids. Not everyone who plays this are hardcore masochists. 

it has notting to do with the hardcore masochists at all.

it has to do with the generation diffrends between players.

the new players like you will never understand how it was back in the old day's when you need to do all the side quest's and bonus serie's to reach the next planet level and do with a group off people to compleet the heroic's on that planet also.

the new players not understand at all how it feels when you need to be level 50 to defeat the last boss from chapter 3 from the class story line that it was a hard work.

there are a lot off things new players never will understand since there never have feel it on there own in the first place.

new players never will understand how hard work it was back in the old day's to defeat the last boss from chapter 3 from you class story line.

there are things new players never are going to understand how it was back then when you need to work hard to compleet something.

and thats something a lot off old players are missing that you need to work hard on the class story line missions to compleet it.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Spikanor