Thing youre missing people, is that for something to change ONE of the following has to be true

 

1- everyone (almost) must want it - which this thread clearly proves is not the case

2- devs do it cos they want to ignoring community - anyone remember the SWG update that killed the game ? no ?

 

ABSOLUTELY not. A lot of people didn't like BW fixing the Ravagers or the Ziost exploits, but that had to be done.

 

Also, no Dev team wants to ignore their community, it is sometimes done out of necessity and sometimes done out of laziness but never because they want to ignore their customers. That mentality is just stupid.

Level 60 characters can wear gear with expertise, lowbies cannot. Expertise means even level 60s in BIS PVE gear die to level 60s in first tier PVP gear. Do you really think level syncing will remove that?

Did I say it would remove it? No, I did not. Don't put words in my mouth. I said it certainly wouldn't make the problem worse, and would most likely lessen the issue, but I never said it would remove the issue because that would be wrong. Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

I hope with the companion changes, BW would set up some kind of vendor for companions' starting gears. Most of my companions look so ugly because I needed to upgrade their stats back when I was leveling. If BW is doing the companion changes, so the gears only affects their look. I wish to able to buy their original gear when I first met them. Preferably costing a little bit of credits, and not super expensive, or cost CC, or not able to get them anywhere

1) People can now run almost all non op content solo. This argument is a bit silly but relevant . When the expansion is released people could the day before farm what they wanted & now they cannot. Bioware have expressed multiple times that they dont want to take things away from players but for the current longterm playerbase this is like a soft removal of content.

Ahem...

list for me the cons of Level-Sync which don't stem from [...] B: you being antisocial

 

2) Strongholds. I have recently decorated an Imp/Sith themed SH. I wanted a load of the Emporer statues from The False Emperor . I COULD have gone on GF for a slightly faster run but then I would have 1/4 chance of any statue drop so I hit them solo.

Group content is group content. It was meant to be run in a group, just like this story-based MMO was meant to be based around story. They're returning to their roots in more ways than one. Cope.

 

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This text signifies that this post is now an edited version of the original, adjusted in light of the solid points made by MeNaCe-NZ. Everyone who responded to the original post did so because that is what I originally said, and they obviously have the full rights to do so. However, just realize that I have now made adjustments in the specific words I have used to more-accurately explain the argument I disagree with, which is to make the feature a simple toggle option, rather than just making it optional in any way. As I myself have shown (due heavily to the good observations of MeNaCe-NZ), there are ways (albeit very complicated ways) to make it optional (though not directly toggleable).

 

TO *EVERYONE* WHO SUPPORTS TOGGLEABLE LEVEL SYNC, READ THIS:

 

Level-Sync CANNOT be toggleable, it would absolutely destroy the game. If it's toggleable, the entire purpose of the feature is lost. Not only that, everyone with the feature toggled on will be insta-kicked from Heroic groups. If it's toggleable, base raiding will be ruined because base guards will HAVE to be 65 to defend against players with the feature toggled off, yet players with it on will have no chance whatsoever against base guards on lower-level planets. If it's toggleable, everyone with it toggled on will be insta-ganked in Open World PvP (events, Outlaw's Den, etc). The only way to make this feature toggleable would be make it semi-permanently toggleable by separating every single server into two servers, one for Level-Sync and one for non-Level-Sync. However, this would still destroy the game because guilds would be split down the middle, breaking apart raid groups and player communities. Besides, the community simply is not large enough to halve every server; there just aren't enough players. There are hardly enough as it is, on some servers.

 

EVERY SINGLE PERSON who supports toggleable Level-Sync has, in doing so, demonstrated a complete lack of foresight regarding this feature, and therefore does not belong in this thread or anywhere where a constructive discussion on the topic is being held.

 

If you think they should scrap Level-Sync, I understand. I disagree, but I understand, and I'll accept it as a VALID argument to make, even if I strongly disagree with it. Personally, I believe that the pros vastly outweigh the cons. However, either extreme is vastly superior to the lukewarm "toggleable" idea. Toggleable Level-Sync would KILL this game, and as a result it is not a valid argument to make; it is not logical and it is not beneficial to the success or the survival of the game. As I've explained above, it is a blind and stupid idea and will bring utter disaster on SWTOR. Neither extreme threatens the survival of the game, but the "toggleable" suggestion DOES.

Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

Did I say it would remove it? No, I did not. Don't put words in my mouth. I said it certainly wouldn't make the problem worse, and would most likely lessen the issue, but I never said it would remove the issue because that would be wrong.

 

I didn't put words in your mouth, you said ganking would be harder because people would be equal levels. However when people are equal levels, expertise makes that equality irrelevant.

 

So it's not even going to make ganking harder, lowbies will still get wasted by max level characters in PVP gear. The difference will be one shot, versus 3 shot, and they won't even touch the hp of the guy with expertise. Tickling will be more effective.

 

PS. Do you even play on a PvP server? Because if you don't, your argument is invalid.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Draqsko

Ahem...

 

 

Group content is group content. It was meant to be run in a group, just like this story-based MMO was meant to be based around story. They're returning to their roots in more ways than one. Cope.

 

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TO *EVERYONE* WHO SUPPORTS OPTIONAL LEVEL SYNC, READ THIS:

 

Level-Sync CANNOT be optional, it would absolutely destroy the game. If it's optional, the entire purpose of the feature is lost. Not only that, everyone with the feature toggled on will be insta-kicked from Heroic groups. If it's optional, base raiding will be ruined because base guards will HAVE to be 65 to defend against players with the feature toggled off, yet players with it on will have no chance whatsoever against base guards on lower-level planets. If it's optional, everyone with it toggled on will be insta-ganked in Open World PvP (events, Outlaw's Den, etc). The only way to make this feature optional would be to separate every single server into two servers, one for Level-Sync and one for non-Level-Sync. However, this would still destroy the game because guilds would be split down the middle, breaking apart raid groups and player communities. Besides, the community simply is not large enough to halve every server; there just aren't enough players. There are hardly enough as it is, on some servers.

 

EVERY SINGLE PERSON who supports optional Level-Sync has, in doing so, demonstrated a complete lack of foresight regarding this feature, and therefore does not belong in this thread or anywhere where a constructive discussion on the topic is being held.

 

If you think they should scrap Level-Sync, I understand. I disagree, but I understand, and I'll accept it as a VALID argument to make, even if I strongly disagree with it. Personally, I believe that the pros vastly outweigh the cons. However, either extreme is vastly superior to the lukewarm "optional" idea. Optional Level-Sync would KILL this game, and as a result it is not a valid argument to make; it is not logical and it is not beneficial to the success or the survival of the game. As I've explained above, it is a blind and stupid idea and will bring utter disaster on SWTOR. Neither extreme threatens the survival of the game, but the "toggleable" suggestion DOES.

 

Oh boy, you certainly use a lot of shiny bright colours and big fonts on your posts... which only makes them so much more annoying to read.

 

Anyway, if optional level sync is so bad and can't be done, then i vote for NO LEVEL SYNC!

Edited October 4, 2015 by Rujopetteri

I didn't put words in your mouth, you said ganking would be harder because people would be equal levels. However when people are equal levels, expertise makes that equality irrelevant.

No, it doesn't. It lessens it, but it's still there. Besides, if Level-Sync is reducing everyone's stats down to the level of the planet, why are you assuming they're not even touching Expertise? I imagine they would Sync it down just like every other stat. But for the sake of conversation, let's say they didn't. Even if they didn't, expertise still just multiplies your damage, defense, and healing. Effectiveness in PvP will still go down considerably when Synced, even if they don't touch how much Expertise you have when Synced.

 

PS. Do you even play on a PvP server? Because if you don't, your argument is invalid.

I do, and yet even on my PvE server I have well over a thousand open world kills, from Oricon to Ilum to Nar Shaddaa to Voss. If you're disagreeing with me, it should be because you believe my argument to be wrong. If you believe my argument to be wrong, you ought to be able to prove why. Therefore, I have to wonder why you're trying to short-cut the discussion by trying to invalidate my point. Let's just pretend I've never done open-world PvP and have no characters on a PvP server. If that was true, why would it invalidate my point, anyway? If that would cause my point to be wrong, why aren't you able to prove it wrong? Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

Anyway, if optional level sync is so bad and can't be done, then i vote for NO LEVEL SYNC!

Then do so. As I said, I'll accept that as a valid point to argue. As I also said, I'll still disagree with it. However, at least it's valid and not harmful to the future of the game.

 

I will debate you and attempt to persuade you otherwise, as I do believe this will be a great and awesome change, but I will still treat the anti-Level-Sync point of view as a rational stance to take.

Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

Adding my voice: PLEASE make level sync optional.

 

Concerns: "Companions no longer generate any stats from gear, their stats are purely based on the level of the companion" - does this mean my tank's stats will be dunked down to my char's medium armor level, etc? How the hay is that going to work? Why not just add a cosmetic tab to companions?

EVERY SINGLE PERSON who supports optional Level-Sync has, in doing so, demonstrated a complete lack of foresight regarding this feature, and therefore does not belong in this thread or anywhere where a constructive discussion on the topic is being held.

 

Funny, I don't see any orange text or a dev symbol here.

 

*plonk*

Ahem...

 

Group content is group content. It was meant to be run in a group, just like this story-based MMO was meant to be based around story. They're returning to their roots in more ways than one. Cope.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

TO *EVERYONE* WHO SUPPORTS OPTIONAL LEVEL SYNC, READ THIS:

 

Level-Sync CANNOT be optional, it would absolutely destroy the game. If it's optional, the entire purpose of the feature is lost. Not only that, everyone with the feature toggled on will be insta-kicked from Heroic groups. If it's optional, base raiding will be ruined because base guards will HAVE to be 65 to defend against players with the feature toggled off, yet players with it on will have no chance whatsoever against base guards on lower-level planets. If it's optional, everyone with it toggled on will be insta-ganked in Open World PvP (events, Outlaw's Den, etc). The only way to make this feature optional would be to separate every single server into two servers, one for Level-Sync and one for non-Level-Sync. However, this would still destroy the game because guilds would be split down the middle, breaking apart raid groups and player communities. Besides, the community simply is not large enough to halve every server; there just aren't enough players. There are hardly enough as it is, on some servers.

 

EVERY SINGLE PERSON who supports optional Level-Sync has, in doing so, demonstrated a complete lack of foresight regarding this feature, and therefore does not belong in this thread or anywhere where a constructive discussion on the topic is being held.

 

If you think they should scrap Level-Sync, I understand. I disagree, but I understand, and I'll accept it as a VALID argument to make, even if I strongly disagree with it. Personally, I believe that the pros vastly outweigh the cons. However, either extreme is vastly superior to the lukewarm "optional" idea. Optional Level-Sync would KILL this game, and as a result it is not a valid argument to make; it is not logical and it is not beneficial to the success or the survival of the game. As I've explained above, it is a blind and stupid idea and will bring utter disaster on SWTOR. Neither extreme threatens the survival of the game, but the "toggleable" suggestion DOES.

 

Whilst I support level sync I do believe it could be made optional.

 

I guess when I say optional is that there would be no open world level sync. This wouldn't really help with the ganking or botting of course.

 

From there you could still ideally enforce level sync for the world bosses in that they could be somewhat invisibly instanced. By this I mean the boss could scale to the highest level of the players in the group making people plan out the encounter and group composition before just rushing in. The invisible instance would be that it basically locks that boss to the attacking group once combat is initiated so people in the group could still do run backs etc.

Having the level sync toggle on/off would have no effect on the WB mechanic.

 

This then leaves bases as they are currently I believe.

 

The optional/sync part would be in regards to heroics/fp's from there. I firmly believe people shouldn't be rewarded for god mode in that content so rewards should be pretty much removed ( or heavily scaled back if you do god mode it and certainly BOP at the best ). This then at least gives people the freedom to do the content if they want and will seperate the greedy players from those that just want to enjoy something they didn't/won't do as a group when it's challenging for whatever reason.

 

I'm sure I've missed something but my main point is it is possible if you remove forced the open world aspect to it.

 

All in all though in hopes of decreasing ganking and stopping botting the forced open world aspect is appealing in that regard, it will have some negative impact on me wanting to do things like holocrons/bounties/seekerdroid/macro etc. in the future however because trash can be quite annoying in this regard.

 

Seems like this was the easiest solution for BW to do really and in a way the most logical because to do it my way ( or a variant there of ) would require quite a lot of work and testing and no doubt be susceptible to bugs/exploits etc. so forced mandatory seems the easier route.

 

Given the choice between mandatory sync or no sync, I'm in favour of mandatory.

Adding my voice: PLEASE make level sync optional.

 

Concerns: "Companions no longer generate any stats from gear, their stats are purely based on the level of the companion" - does this mean my tank's stats will be dunked down to my char's medium armor level, etc? How the hay is that going to work? Why not just add a cosmetic tab to companions?

 

Thankfully, now that I've finally concentrated my reasons into a single post (which I will no doubt add to as I think of more awful results of an optional Level-Sync), I can simply refer you to this post which explains why optional Level-Sync will destroy SWTOR.

 

As for the second paragraph (which admittedly is refreshing to discuss given all the Level-Sync talk), no, that is not what it means. Let's say you're level 46 and you have... oh I don't know... Khem Val (Inquisitor Companion). Your Khem Val will have the predetermined stats of a Level 46 Khem Val (in whatever mode you have him, be it Tank, DPS or Healer). This change will also make it easier to do that, to quickly change a companion (outside of combat) to a different role without having to worry about gearing it.

 

As for the cosmetic part, YES, all your cosmetic options are still there. You can still equip companions who display gear (humanoids, etc. exceptions include companions like droids, like Khem Val, like Bowdaar, etc) in order to display that gear (it will only be for cosmetic purposes), and you will still have the slot to give your companion a Companion Customization.

 

 

Essentially, the companion changes you're talking about retain ALL cosmetic functionality that we currently have, but make it so we don't have to worry about gearing our companions anymore, and now they can fill any of the three roles*. Additionally, any of that companion-only 192 rating gear (Yavin I believe) you may have earned for your companions will become player-usable in 4.0 (this does NOT include weapons, and besides, those were from Rishi anyway if memory serves).

 

*I personally think HK and Treek may be exceptions, but that is my own speculation and I have no factual basis for that, so do not take it as fact or even as rumor. It is merely my hunch.

Optional Level Sync would in a perfect world work as follows.

 

You load into Aldaran. There is a terminal at the spacestation or landing zone that works like the Makeb buff terminal. Click it, and BAM level down.

 

You join a group. You get a shiny pop up saying 'would you like to be the same level as the lowest group member?' which you can click yes or no to.

 

You join a FP, just like there is a HM FP, there would be a 'run at intended level' option to click.

 

That's it. It's not game breaking. If you want to run gray content for exp, click the planet terminal. If you and some friends want to run a FP that is difficult again, click that option. If you want to help a guildmate friend or random stranger, you click the option to mentor down when you group up with them.

 

This system I have talked about above has worked in many games successfully for many years.

Whilst I support level sync I do believe it could be made optional.

Okay. I'm interested to read what you have to say.

 

I guess when I say optional is that there would be no open world level sync.

Okay... this would certainly alleviate most of the cons... but it would take out almost all the pros too. Speaking of that, I really should list why I'm for level sync, rather than simply why most of the cons aren't of substance. Guess I know what post I'm making next

 

you could still ideally enforce level sync for the world bosses in that they could be somewhat invisibly instanced. By this I mean the boss could scale to the highest level of the players in the group making people plan out the encounter and group composition before just rushing in. The invisible instance would be that it basically locks that boss to the attacking group once combat is initiated so people in the group could still do run backs etc.

Having the level sync toggle on/off would have no effect on the WB mechanic.

That's not a bad suggestion, I believe this would certainly solve the World Boss side of the Level-Sync cons many have brought up.

 

This then leaves bases as they are currently I believe.

Yeah it does, but again, this is because your proposition doesn't include open-world Level-Sync which is what most of the pros stem from However, upon consideration, I agree that this world-boss change would be nice if they weren't to implement Level-Sync. It'd at least be a little bit of the Sync to give endgamers some new-feeling bosses to tackle. That's always a plus

 

The optional/sync part would be in regards to heroics/fp's from there. I firmly believe people shouldn't be rewarded for god mode in that content so rewards should be pretty much removed ( or heavily scaled back if you do god mode it and certainly BOP at the best ). This then at least gives people the freedom to do the content if they want and will seperate the greedy players from those that just want to enjoy something they didn't/won't do as a group when it's challenging for whatever reason.

Well, let's not even talk about Flashpoints. They're not related to Level-Sync. That's PvE Bolster territory, I believe, and that system appears to be working relatively well (given the balancing which takes place in KDY and the like). I would even argue that PvP's Bolster is pretty good nowadays, relative to what it used to be like. But that's not even the same territory as PvE bolster so that's way far away from the main focus of this topic (sorry, went on a bit of a rabbit trail there )

 

As for the heroics, here's how it could technically be made optional in a non-destructive way: The questgiver gives TWO options for picking up the quest. Synced and non-synced. If you choose synced, while you have the quest (and are on the planet, just to avoid clutter), your character has a buff which says "<Heroic Name> - Synced Mode" and if you choose non-synced, same thing, except the buff says "<Heroic Name> - Non-Synced Mode". If you have the synced version, then while you're in the Heroic Area of that quest, your stats are synced to the level of the quest. If not every member has the same buff (some have Synced, some have Non-Synced) no one can attack the enemies or progress the quest objectives. Additionally, if there are different synced statuses among the players, these players must be synced to level 1 stats while in the heroic area. This has to happen otherwise players will have a mixed combination, get to the objective, and then those with a certain buff drop the group. Essentially, this is a safeguard against exploiting this system.

 

If all members of the group have one type of buff, then they are either Synced (if they all have Sync on) or ignored by Sync (if they all have Non-Sync). If anyone from that group attacks a mob, that mob is instantly tagged with that buff type (either Synced or Non-Synced) and if anyone tries to damage the mob who's not part of the group and has either the opposite buff type or none at all, that damage will be completely ignored, again for the sake of minimizing the exploitability of this proposed system.

 

With this system, people would simply be able to LFG a heroic and specify Synced or Non-Synced, that way people wouldn't be kicked out for this reason. (I suppose people could technically do that if Level-Sync was directly implemented as a toggleable option, but it'd suck more, and there'd be more negativity). The one major drawback I see to this idea is that some Heroic missions share the Heroic Area with other Heroic missions (like Ord Mantell for example).

 

Again, I am still not supporting non-mandatory Level-Sync, but I am agreeing that there are ways to implement certain parts of it as optional. However, as I have said, by doing this, most of the pros are lost.

Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

Thankfully, now that I've finally concentrated my reasons into a single post (which I will no doubt add to as I think of more awful results of an optional Level-Sync), I can simply refer you to this post which explains why optional Level-Sync will destroy SWTOR.

It's nice to see that acutely hyperbolic phrasing ("Death of the game!") isn't restricted to one side of the aisle...

I believe they wasted time and money with Level-sync. They should have level-synced just the flashpoints and operations this is group content, and having more people able to do them is better but worlds are another story.

 

• I hope they don’t ruin leveling for low player, having just x12 though the bounty hunter story I can tell you on at least two occasions the story quest has the player go into lower level planet 4 man heroic zones to get to their instance. On Nar Shaddaa and on Dromund Kaas “the malignant bog” I heard people in this thread say “well I had no problem” well that is because the mobs ignore you when you are 10 levels above them, but if you’re scaled down so they no longer ignore you. Are you going to need a 4 man group to get to your story instance? That is just bad design.

 

• I also don’t think that it helps max level characters at all. They are at max level so xp gains are worthless. If they aren’t max level, I doubt if many at high but not max have any intention of leveling at dromund kaas instead of leveling with new content. (I don’t)

 

• I also doubt if many guildies will be as inclined to go back to help other guildies out knowing that instead of taking 5-15 minutes to zerg though a zone. It will take 45 minutes or longer, they have things they logged on and wanted to do.

 

• Personally I have no intention of going back to get datacrons or leveling crafting that I skipped knowing that instead of taking a few minutes since the mobs were ignoring me I have to fight my way through them all again. (not fighting them all is why I came back for x12)

 

• And lastly, going back to lower level made me feel like I was a Sith in the starwars universe “powerful” with level-sync my Sith inquisitor will no longer be powerful, it will take multiple hits to kill even the lowest level mob. My Jedi can no longer kill something in one lightsaber swing like in the movies, instead it will take 10-20 lightsaber swings, that is not powerful. Now I am not saying the game needs to cater to players who want to feel like a powerful Sith or Jedi, but they did have a place in the game where you could feel powerful by eliminating it, it takes some of the reason to play the game out.

 

• As far as having Level-sync optional I think it could be done when you load into planet to have it instanced off so players could decide if you wanted to go to a planet with Level-sync or not, but I don’t expect it to be put in the game.

 

I understand that they wanted to add content for players without actually spending the time or money to add new content. I just don’t expect many people will use it, and i expect a lot of players will be frustrated by it.

Optional Level Sync would in a perfect world work as follows.

 

You load into Aldaran. There is a terminal at the spacestation or landing zone that works like the Makeb buff terminal. Click it, and BAM level down.

 

You join a group. You get a shiny pop up saying 'would you like to be the same level as the lowest group member?' which you can click yes or no to.

The sad sad truth is, the community isn't big enough to support that system. There likely won't be a whole lot of people running any one Heroic at any one time. Will people always be doing heroics in general? Yeah. But there won't constantly be two or three 4-man groups doing them. Also, Synced groups would have to contend with Non-Synced groups, and the Non-Synced groups would still be able to kill the Synced group's mobs. This is assuming you're even saying there would be Synced or Non-Synced groups. If it's a mixed group of Synced and Non-Synced, that'll never work in this game, because of the way its designed, and because people are jerks.

 

You join a FP, just like there is a HM FP, there would be a 'run at intended level' option to click.

let's not even talk about Flashpoints. They're not related to Level-Sync. That's PvE Bolster territory, I believe, and that system appears to be working relatively well (given the balancing which takes place in KDY and the like).

 

 

 

That's it. It's not game breaking. If you want to run gray content for exp, click the planet terminal. If you and some friends want to run a FP that is difficult again, click that option. If you want to help a guildmate friend or random stranger, you click the option to mentor down when you group up with them.

 

This system I have talked about above has worked in many games successfully for many years.

It's not that easy. SWTOR is its own game and it works differently than many other games. There are still a bunch of other players running around which would fly in the face of you choosing one option or another. It'd essentially be "don't sync or you're ruining yourself".

 

As I've said, if the community had a million or two subscribers, then yes, they could separate the servers into Synced and Non-Synced, but even still, it would split guilds down the middle and break up communities because different people would have different preferences, though they'd be in the same guild for, say, endgame.

It's nice to see that acutely hyperbolic phrasing ("Death of the game!") isn't restricted to one side of the aisle...

It wouldn't be an immediate consequence, nor did I claim such. But the chain reaction would eventually lead in that direction, yes. Consequence Wheel.

Okay... this would certainly alleviate most of the cons... but it would take out almost all the pros too. Speaking of that, I really should list why I'm for level sync, rather than simply why most of the cons aren't of substance. Guess I know what post I'm making next

 

That's not a bad suggestion, I believe this would certainly solve the World Boss side of the Level-Sync cons many have brought up.

 

Yeah it does, but again, this is because your proposition doesn't include open-world Level-Sync which is what most of the pros stem from However, upon consideration, I agree that this world-boss change would be nice if they weren't to implement Level-Sync. It'd at least be a little bit of the Sync to give endgamers some new-feeling bosses to tackle. That's always a plus

 

Well, let's not even talk about Flashpoints. They're not related to Level-Sync. That's PvE Bolster territory, I believe, and that system appears to be working relatively well (given the balancing which takes place in KDY and the like). I would even argue that PvP's Bolster is pretty good nowadays, relative to what it used to be like. But that's not even the same territory as PvE bolster so that's way far away from the main focus of this topic (sorry, went on a bit of a rabbit trail there )

 

Fair enough though I guess I wanted to include Flashpoints because I believe they shouldn't b e able to be god moded for the same rewards others get doing them grouped.

 

I guess though they are removing them entirely as we used to know them? That is I see they said they are adding them as tacticals for 10+ but are they also removing them as they used to be in the sense of run in instances at the level they were first introduced?

 

If you can still run in like that then level sync should hopefully apply and stop people god modeing it. Whilst I would like people to god mode if they so choose, I certainly don't think they should be rewarded for it.

 

As for the heroics, here's how it could technically be made optional in a non-destructive way: The questgiver gives TWO options for picking up the quest. Synced and non-synced. If you choose synced, while you have the quest (and are on the planet, just to avoid clutter), your character has a buff which says "<Heroic Name> - Synced Mode" and if you choose non-synced, same thing, except the buff says "<Heroic Name> - Non-Synced Mode". If you have the synced version, then while you're in the Heroic Area of that quest, your stats are synced to the level of the quest. If not every member has the same buff (some have Synced, some have Non-Synced) no one can attack the enemies or progress the quest objectives. Additionally, if there are different synced statuses among the players, these players must be synced to level 1 stats while in the heroic area. This has to happen otherwise players will have a mixed combination, get to the objective, and then those with a certain buff drop the group. Essentially, this is a safeguard against exploiting this system.

 

Personally I would do heroics simpler still and just have if you run in with the sync flag off then you get no exp, no cash, nothing and neither does anyone in your group if you do it with a group. I could be flexible and allow some BOP drops and maybe small, original level appropriate, credit drops from trash but I am still pretty anti rewarding god mode content.

 

Do the content with sync flag on, business as normal as they've planned on it working now with mandatory sync.

 

The new "find a heroic" option where it teleports you would be mandatory sync also.

 

Interesting the system you mentioned you could almost implement something similar in the open world sense around mobs too though it would be a fair bit of work on BW's behalf coding it.

 

One other thing you mentioned is most of the pros for level sync apply to open world? Which pros did you have in mind here ( granted I've not followed the entire thread ).

I can think of ganking ( remove expertise too would be nice or at least downgrade it ) and of course hitting gold seller bots etc. quite hard.

 

Most of the benefits I can see come from around encouraging people to do more grouped content again and providing more to do at elder game level. In turn this has the effect of having more people available for heroics/fp's etc. for the newer players to take part in because in the old system getting a group for a heroic was always a mission in of itself as you leveled up on planet.

I believe they wasted time and money with Level-sync.

Then you should be in favor of them keeping the feature, since that time and money has already been spent (I've heard it's already on the test server). Removing it now from the 4.0 files would take additional time and resources.

 

You've been outplayed

Interesting the system you mentioned

Admittedly I did forget to mention a drawback I had thought of, which is overlapping Heroic areas (for example, Ord Mantell) where multiple Heroics exist in a single Heroic area. It could still work, but it'd be more complicated. I've edited the post to reflect that point I forgot to mention.

 

you could almost implement something similar in the open world sense around mobs too though it would be a fair bit of work on BW's behalf coding it.

That'd be awfully difficult. I could see it happening, but man that would take an unbelievable amount of resources (to program every single mob with the two buffs and their functionality).

 

One other thing you mentioned is most of the pros for level sync apply to open world? Which pros did you have in mind here ( granted I've not followed the entire thread ).

I can think of ganking ( remove expertise too would be nice or at least downgrade it ) and of course hitting gold seller bots etc. quite hard.

 

Most of the benefits I can see come from around encouraging people to do more grouped content again and providing more to do at elder game level. In turn this has the effect of having more people available for heroics/fp's etc. for the newer players to take part in because in the old system getting a group for a heroic was always a mission in of itself as you leveled up on planet.

Guess it's time to list the pros. I'll put this in its own post so I can easily refer to it. Edited October 4, 2015 by idnewton

Then you should be in favor of them keeping the feature, since that time and money has already been spent (I've heard it's already on the test server). Removing it now from the 4.0 files would take additional time and resources.

 

You've been outplayed

 

Just because a business spend money on a bad idea doesn’t mean implementing the bad idea is good for the game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

way do go ignoring all my points

Edited October 4, 2015 by alzzin

As DmdShiva pointed out in one of the other threads, one of the big "pros" may not even provide the intended benefit, at least on lower-level planets with a wide level band.

I will point out that the implementation as described does not properly address one of the things that level-syncing is supposed to enable -- taking your high-level character and playing with your friends and their low-level characters.

 

You've talked your friends into installing SWTOR, and they're logging in and creating their first characters; they've picked Jedi Knight for their class because lightsabers. You take your level-60 Guardian and travel to Tython to join them and help them level, and you're level-synced to 15, five over the planetary target... and they're level 1, so when you team, you're fourteen levels higher, and they don't get XP. Oops. So much for playing together. The same problem will occur each time you advance to a new planet; because the level-syncing is done to the planet level and not the team member level, you can still wind up with teams where the lowbies don't get XP.

I'm not sure the quoted numbers are exactly right, but the starter planets (and possibly DK/Coruscant, depending on the exact sync point used) have enough of a level spread to potentially lose the "mentoring" benefit for a sizable chunk of the content there.

 

This is less likely to occur on higher-level planets (where level ranges are typically tighter), unless the lowbie is running content under-leveled, or the sync point is set to be significantly higher than standard content.

@Idnewton

 

I can't fix jerks. There will always be jerks. There will always be someone who wants to take a world boss out from under a raid. There will always be someone who specifically goes after newbies in PVP. There will always be someone cussing out their group in space pvp because the other side won. There will always be people who use force run to sprint by you, after you cleared all the mobs, to take the node you were after.

 

That's the luck of the draw.

 

However if you read many of the posts by people who dislike the idea of level sync it comes down to 'I am being punished'. If you disagree that's fine. But that is how myself and many others feel. That we are being punished because of the small jerk population.

Just getting back into swtor after a long break and I have to say... this isn't encouraging.

 

The level sync absolutely needs to be optional, this should be common sense.

 

Combining all of the stats? Someday, it seems everyone will have max stats for their level regardless of gear. Just to keep things "simple".

 

Companion gear now meaningless? Good idea if your intention was to alienate older players and make them feel like they wasted a large chunk of their lives. Part of the fun of the leveling/gearing process was also getting to improve companions. Another nudge in the "lets all have max stats all the time at every level" direction. Which by the way, is a terrible direction to go.

 

Hoping this is just a lapse of judgement by the dev team or a test set of notes to see the community's reaction.