If you guys were advocating for a toggle or level selection for yourselves, the way they have a toggle with KOTFE and KOTET, I'd have no issue. But forcing everyone else to "enjoy" your harder playstyle in class story content WILL drive players away. Not everyone is here for an operations-style battle when they just want to enjoy the story. Not everyone cares about learning endgame content because not everyone LIKES or wants to do that group content.

 

If you want harder content in the game, you can nerf your own character (remove gear, companions on passive, etc.). You can play Ops, or flashpoints in NiM, or the many other hard things that SWTOR offers. Why do you also need to force that difficulty into the story content?

 

As for the heroics, it's one of the only viable ways for solo/story players to level up. The minute they require grouping or heavy duty combat, they cease to be viable.

 

The bottom line is that when the game becomes too hard to be fun, I think a lot of us will stop playing and leave. Right now there's really no reason I want to subscribe for 6.0 and this is certainly a factor.

The smoothest way to toggle the difficulty to your own preference actually was there before level sync. The quests being too hard? Simply over level them until you can beat them (with more than five levels difference the NPCs started to often miss you with their abilities). Not enough of a challenge? Stay under level for the content and get hit harder and miss now and then. Then of course the fine tuning with taking off gear of yourself and the companion and such, passive companion etc. The effectiveness of the companions was decided on the presence value you had, you could increase that with gear or buffs or avoid it almost completely to influence their effectiveness to your liking, now story companions do get influence no matter what you do. With the different stances, the different companions being better or worse as dps, tank or heal you had it in your hand. (Liked to run with tank companions in dps stance for example for having a little help but not too much)

In short there were way more possibilities to influence your own difficulty than now.

Even back then when you had to do a mix of planetary quests, FPs or PVP to gain enough experience, you had to be careful to not do too much outside of the class story to stay under level. And I for example did really like to do the planetary chains too and the occasional FP.

As it is now its pretty much impossible to stay under level like that and playing the content I like and even wearing empty cartel market shells or so does not shut off the level sync bolster.

I get that people do like some things to be easy, but shouldn't there be at least a tiny bit of threat to die if you mess up, should there really no need at all to use a defensive ability now and then, interrupts or stuns, crowd control? To think for a moment before attacking a trash group, to maybe make out which enemy is the most dangerous and focus that instead of just hit the aoe button again and again.

Is it really fun for anyone to go taking care of the washing machine while the (healing) companion just keeps going on alone and when you are back the trash is either dead or they still happily hit your companion and it heals and heals and heals itself up against it?

Yes, I actually tried that if that really works, granted it does not everywhere but often enough, in my opinion my toon should die if I'm leaving it alone like that.

Not everyone is interested to head into the more difficult content or group stuff, once done with the story and solo parts, okay, nothing wrong with that. But there are also those that are, and frankly those players hit a huge wall in the current balance on live server. Where some use of defensive stuff, interrupts, focus on the right target at the right time slowly used to come into play within the leveling experience, it's now more or less care about next to nothing and then you are suddenly expected to know about all of that from one moment to the next.

Vet FPs and SM ops had so many mechanics taken out or made completely pointless as they can just be ignored currently, that people don't learn how to deal with them in an easy more forgiving setting. The class story chapter bosses used to be some sort of a corner stone, for playing somewhat tactical, paying attention to the enemies abilities and learn what could be done to counter them with the new abilities you just got from your class trainer. Worst example is the already mentioned Baras, all these fights simply don't last long enough these days to get to the point where they even use the formerly challenging abilities.

Part of the problem with the difficulty is, as it is, players don't know/learn how to deal with mechanic when they are confronted with them out of the blue. That includes the more difficult KOTFE/ET mentioned here, it is also 'difficult' because it is surprising to need to do this or that all of a sudden to succeed.

For a new player, there is no "mhmm let's try this, that worked on evil guy XY or maybe that new shiny ability or lets look what else do I have in my arsenal", cause during the current easy vanilla content there often is just "simply hitting this attack button over and over, my companion does the rest". Yes, rotation would be faster, more effective and what ever, but the people I saw using nothing but sweeping fire, nothing but force storm... they get to max level with that, without the game signalling them to maybe overthink that tactic, since it just works.

I really don't understand how that can be considered healthy for the game in the long run and appreciate that the difficulty slightly increases again.

As i side note, I played VET Foundry on PTS this weekend and while HK might be slightly over-tuned, since I'm of the opinion a decent healer should be able to heal a decent group without needing the kolto stations, it reminded me of the old days of going in there with a trinity group of players on the lower scale of the intended level of that FP, you had to be careful. And I really liked to see Revan actually doing his full scale of abilities again and not dying before he was even half through his 'rotation'.

On that part if you are afraid, it's going to be scaled too difficult in the end, use the PTS to give feedback.

If you guys were advocating for a toggle or level selection for yourselves, the way they have a toggle with KOTFE and KOTET, I'd have no issue.

Search the forums before you start accusing "us guys", as I'm sure I either made a thread proposing difficulty toggle for ALL content, or proposed it in some of my posts.

But forcing everyone else to "enjoy" your harder playstyle in class story content WILL drive players away. Not everyone is here for an operations-style battle when they just want to enjoy the story. Not everyone cares about learning endgame content because not everyone LIKES or wants to do that group content.

You could also read my OP, as I stated clearly I'm not an endgamer. Also exaggerating isn't going to help here, and I think you are well aware that 2 levels down on sync and slightly weaker healing does not compare even closely to "operations style battles".

If you want harder content in the game, you can nerf your own character (remove gear, companions on passive, etc.). You can play Ops, or flashpoints in NiM, or the many other hard things that SWTOR offers. Why do you also need to force that difficulty into the story content?

I read this argument back in the day when I tried to advocate against nerfed content. This idea is very much against rpg playing, as getting better stuff, managing companions and using all abilities is a large part of any rpg game.

IF the vanilla content really gets harder with 6.0, then I'd recommend some simple solutions to leveling problems, that you could encounter (if that will really be the case, and I seriously doubt it will be that hard).

Gather materials and use your alts to craft blue or purple gear for your struggling character, and I'm sure you'll go further through any vanilla story. In every rpg game you need better armors/swords to beat harder enemies, that is also in line with the story -as we get more and more powerful with each chapter.

IDK about balancing in KOTFE/KOTET as they are pretty far on my list of things to do in game, but they were much harder than vanilla anyway and somehow people were able to get past them.

As for the heroics, it's one of the only viable ways for solo/story players to level up. The minute they require grouping or heavy duty combat, they cease to be viable.

 

Hey, though, as I said above, it's all moot now, isn't it? You guys won. You'll get your harder game, and the rest of us will get driven off. Enjoy.

This I do not understand -I level up doing story and lowbie pvp, I don't do heroics since they've been nerfed, its too painful to remember how fun they used to be.

I get that you are bitter about this, but wait and see. I bet my lightsaber that all the "harder game" will be for you is a bit slower killing mobs, some planning ahead (like kill the healers first, then silvers, etc) and eventually some rest and recharge for few seconds before getting to another mob

Please count into everything that we have much more tools to use these days, like Legacy Unity (or how it is called), Legacy buffs (if all companion stories were played through) and Heroic Moments.

 

All this stuff was not there years ago, and thus everything felt harder and more of a challence.

 

These Legacy buffs, for example, everyone forgets about them easily, because they are not openly presented to the player. You can read about them only in the Legacy window.

 

When I created years ago a new character on a different server with no Legacy etc. at all, it definitively felt so much harder, and my char died much more often because oif that.

 

Legacy buffing is to me a bit like the "Matthew Effect", like with "those who have will be given even more". The more your legacy advances, the more legacy buffs you receive.

Yeah, I know, I remember. My first ever character was a marauder and it was my first time in a mmo. I died a lot I used cunning stat leather coat just because it looked cool, and learned of interrupts during Baras fight.

On alts it got less difficult due to buffs and my becoming a slightly better player. I ran like 10 different alts through vanilla before 4.0 and it never was a faceroll it is now. This is still the best content in the game, and IMO needs to be taken care of a bit by the devs. I find the increased difficulty (if true) to be the move in a right direction

And they are in open world, not instanced, so they feel much more immersive than closed Zakuul or Darvannis chapters of KOTFE.

The Darvannis chapter is mostly open-world apart from the bits that would be mortally bothersome if they were open world (bonus blue clickables, etc. in the second segment, for example).

If you guys were advocating for a toggle or level selection for yourselves, the way they have a toggle with KOTFE and KOTET, I'd have no issue. But forcing everyone else to "enjoy" your harder playstyle in class story content WILL drive players away. Not everyone is here for an operations-style battle when they just want to enjoy the story. Not everyone cares about learning endgame content because not everyone LIKES or wants to do that group content.

 

If you want harder content in the game, you can nerf your own character (remove gear, companions on passive, etc.). You can play Ops, or flashpoints in NiM, or the many other hard things that SWTOR offers. Why do you also need to force that difficulty into the story content?

 

As for the heroics, it's one of the only viable ways for solo/story players to level up. The minute they require grouping or heavy duty combat, they cease to be viable.

 

Hey, though, as I said above, it's all moot now, isn't it? You guys won. You'll get your harder game, and the rest of us will get driven off. Enjoy.

It's pretty amusing the way you keep blaming players for BW's stupid decisions. If you're done irrationally attacking players for being excited that vanilla won't be as faceroll as before, try this on for size: in your experience, has BW consistently listened to a niche group of players? When they did, as for example GftM being the main source of gear for awhile [which was a result of a dev being in a raider group, not a suggestion from the forum], have they made changes that were actually effective for players, or did they just make the simplest change possible because that's easy?

The answer is that BW very obviously doesn't cater to any playstyle and never has. When they appear to be placating story folks at the expense of PVE folks, we end up with some mess like KotFE. I'm a story player. The 'Knights' expansions were crap, and they were crap exactly because BW took the easiest path possible to make a story and didn't bother making it alt-friendly or valuing player attachment for their companions.

They made the game easier during 4.0, and again they didn't just make it slightly easier, they made it stupidly easier. For you to argue that players should take off their gear, set their comp to passive, all these other counter-intuitive ideas is to take the blame away from BW's mismanagement and put it on players. And no one is doing that to you. No one is saying 'well you just have to not be a bad." But even if we DID say that, it would be - for once - richly deserved in your case, for attacking us instead of the people who actually screwed up the game you love.

tl;dr - if you want to be bitter and angry, blame BW, not a hypothetical niche of hardcore gamers.

Hey folks,

 

I alluded to this in my earlier post (Phase 3 coming down the end of the this week) but I wanted to post a reminder. PTS Phase 3 will be coming down for good this Friday afternoon! Make sure to get in your PTS Achievements by then if you want the Kai Zaikken log.

 

The current patch that is on PTS will be the final one. We would love to put up more patches and show you the changes that have already been made, along with gathering more feedback. At this point though the team needs to focus their efforts on the final build for the 22nd. Definitely keep all feedback coming it is still being passed onto the team and rolled into launch.

 

Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

This was posted yesterday.

According to this no more major updates will be done ! A few tweaks perhaps … but what is done … is done !

BW team has spoken.

Enjoy !

(more or less)

:o:o:o:o:o

It's far easier for you as a player who wants harder content in vanilla to nerf yourself - take off your gear, put your companion on passive and don't up their influence too much, use a White Acute module to stay level - than it is for a player who wants easier content to contend with something too hard. But that would require you to take responsibility for your own game instead of expecting every single player to want to tackle difficult and long fights when they're just trying to enjoy the story.

The argument you're making here is essentially reverse L2P. Do you like it when people tell you to "git gud" or something equally silly? We don't appreciate when you suggest it's up to us to "create our own difficulty".

If you disregard the original gearing grind (which is no longer a concern), vanilla story content never required you to do anything beyond getting out of AOE, interrupting a certain cast, and maybe pop the odd DCD. Rarely simultaneously. This is a game. Story comes *with* gameplay. It is simply not reasonable to push for the the game to have a visual novel mode for the handful of players who cannot be bothered to go beyond autoattack.

Just hope the story -- the real story -- not story mode FPs ...

are not that hard -- my gear is story mode ... I do not do operations for better gear, not what I am interested in ---

if is impossible to solo the STORY -- then ... well ... <sigh>

When it goes live, many will leave. There are people who do not even accomplish the Story Mode in KOTET....*cough* Vaylin *cough*

Yes, my Sorc had a very hard time with the fight against spirits of Vaylin and Arcann at the end of KOTET. Fortunately for me, I grumbled about it in chat and some very nice person gave me two vital tips that allowed me to beat Vaylin.

He/She said to fight with my back against the staircase so I couldn't be blown over the side, and run quickly out to green heal circle and back when Vaylin levitates to charge her blast-thingie. That simple bit of advice made all the difference, and I'm repeating it here in the hope it might be useful to some other poor soul stuck in the same situation.

Back on main topic, lowering level cap by two and reducing companion heals by 15% doesn't seem like anything to worry about, as far as the original storyline. KOTFE and KOTET are a different story. Iokath might be rough in places.

Regardless of what it was .. or will be... there was at one time an easy solution.

Three / four levels of play.

1. Solo / group / story

2. Solo / group / Veteran

3. Elite / group / solo

The makings of this simple 3 tiered levels of play are easy to understand. Drops / Gear / rewards from each would be reflective of each. Players who would prefer to start out in Solo mode … gather gear might choose to take steps into a more difficult area and earn even better rewards … etc.

The foundation for this has already been laid. All that was needed was to "REFINE" the process and make it available to players regardless of what part / stage of the game they are in.

EDIT:

Current system already in place on live game includes the following found under Activities in the drop down menu ( look under the triangle: Content ) This is already set up in this fashion.

GROUP

Ops

Uprisings : Veteran

FP's: Veteran

FP's: Master

SOLO

Heroics

Dailies

FP's

How easy would have been to simply improve on the process ….

BUT even then IMO... some would prefer to gripe and complain that BW is catering to someone !! Some will complain regardless.

Well... from what I have seen BW did the only thing that they could do. They ignored everyone and made up whatever they felt like !!

Was it really so much to ask to have something that offered a level of game play in the above mentioned 3 tiered system ?

It doesn't matter any more.... And for the record … I expect to have my … umm .. "response" handed to me ! So if I don't reply … don't be surprised !

One fight (Vaylin) shouldn't be the reason you think the whole game's difficulty is set too high. It just means that one fight might be overtuned.

Respectfully...

My post was not based on finding a resolution for the one fight with Vaylin.

Your post may not have been directed at my response thus far. If that is the case … let me apologize in advance !

That said … in case others might be wondering. The idea was to take what we already had (past tense now) … build / improve / adjust and make better.

IMO... that is not what we will be getting.

This I do not understand -I level up doing story and lowbie pvp, I don't do heroics since they've been nerfed, its too painful to remember how fun they used to be.

I get that you are bitter about this, but wait and see. I bet my lightsaber that all the "harder game" will be for you is a bit slower killing mobs, some planning ahead (like kill the healers first, then silvers, etc) and eventually some rest and recharge for few seconds before getting to another mob

That you like playing PvP to lvl up is your right if that's how you enjoy it, but there are people who don't like PvP and don't necessarily want to group up with other people.

I play heroics for 2 main reasons : to lvl up and/or to get credits.

I usually choose the quickest ones, that take something like 2-3 min to complete, if i have to spend 1-2 min more on each one to clean the trash, that is a huge waste of time...

Lets say you take 20 heroics and do each one in 2 mins, now add 2 min for each one of these, and you've already lost 40 mins.

40 mins is the time i usually spent on 1 character to do all the heroics i usually pick, so that's the time i won't be able to spend on another character, which is a lot less money or xp/cxp at the end of the day...

The argument you're making here is essentially reverse L2P. Do you like it when people tell you to "git gud" or something equally silly? We don't appreciate when you suggest it's up to us to "create our own difficulty".

 

If you disregard the original gearing grind (which is no longer a concern), vanilla story content never required you to do anything beyond getting out of AOE, interrupting a certain cast, and maybe pop the odd DCD. Rarely simultaneously. This is a game. Story comes *with* gameplay. It is simply not reasonable to push for the the game to have a visual novel mode for the handful of players who cannot be bothered to go beyond autoattack.

I don't really care if endgamers are offended at this point. We've already conceded you're getting a game tailored to you in about 12 days. You're getting what you want.

As a player who wants more challenge you do control your destiny. You can play the harder content the game already provides. Duel your friends. Do ranked PvP. Set the KOTET chapter difficulty to MM. There's a lot of hard stuff out there to do already, the choice just needs to be yours to do it. Making those choices doesn't affect any other players.

When people ask for all the content to be tuned up, it does affect other players. What options does a story player have if the vanilla content or expacs are tuned too high to complete? Not much. There's no easier mode. Overleveling and overgearing won't do much to help because of level sync. The game might be easy in vanilla to you, but given that I see dead players even now every time I go through the starter and home planets, it's obviously not easy for everyone. Some people play with disabilities, major lag, etc. as well.

Regardless of what it was .. or will be... there was at one time an easy solution.

I agree with the intent. I disagree that it's easy. IIRC they stated before 5.0 that they have no plans to revisit old content, which probably rules out adding different difficulty modes and balancing rewards etc where they didn't exist before.

It's just another facet of the general lack of resources this team has had to deal with since, uh, the game went F2P.

Search the forums before you start accusing "us guys", as I'm sure I either made a thread proposing difficulty toggle for ALL content, or proposed it in some of my posts.

I've got twelve days to play the game before I lose it when it becomes unplayable (not just due to this, but this doesn't help). I'm not spending time stalking people's post histories, sorry.

You could also read my OP, as I stated clearly I'm not an endgamer. Also exaggerating isn't going to help here, and I think you are well aware that 2 levels down on sync and slightly weaker healing does not compare even closely to "operations style battles".

On the PTS people documented dying on the home planets, having much harder time in heroics, and that the HP for some planets OUTSIDE heroics was 2/3 lower than live. It was documented that story mode KOTET had at least two parts that were impassable or extremely difficult. That's a bit more serious, especially considering that the pool testing on the PTS is probably a part of the playerbase that cares deeply about the game and has spent a lot of time with it.

IF the vanilla content really gets harder with 6.0, then I'd recommend some simple solutions to leveling problems, that you could encounter (if that will really be the case, and I seriously doubt it will be that hard).

Gather materials and use your alts to craft blue or purple gear for your struggling character, and I'm sure you'll go further through any vanilla story. In every rpg game you need better armors/swords to beat harder enemies, that is also in line with the story -as we get more and more powerful with each chapter.

I start modding my characters' gear when they're around level 14 and I'm usually level 70 by the time my characters get to Belsavis or Voss. I think I know how to gear, thanks. But that won't help because the lower level sync, nerfed companions and decreased HP will eliminate any advantage the gear would give.

This I do not understand -I level up doing story and lowbie pvp, I don't do heroics since they've been nerfed, its too painful to remember how fun they used to be. I get that you are bitter about this, but wait and see. I bet my lightsaber that all the "harder game" will be for you is a bit slower killing mobs, some planning ahead (like kill the healers first, then silvers, etc) and eventually some rest and recharge for few seconds before getting to another mob

Not everyone enjoys PvP or wants to level up that way. I go for the instanced heroics and solo flashpoints so I can get in, get XP and gear while being left alone, and go on my way. If they become too difficult it's not going to be worth the bother, though.

The problem is that we have different definitions of "fun." If "fun" for you is hard fights, that's great, and the game has a lot of places for that. If "fun" is more about absorbing the story, once it becomes too difficult, casual/easy players don't have any recourse and don't get to enjoy the game anymore.

That you like playing PvP to lvl up is your right if that's how you enjoy it, but there are people who don't like PvP and don't necessarily want to group up with other people.

 

I play heroics for 2 main reasons : to lvl up and/or to get credits.

 

I usually choose the quickest ones, that take something like 2-3 min to complete, if i have to spend 1-2 min more on each one to clean the trash, that is a huge waste of time...

 

Lets say you take 20 heroics and do each one in 2 mins, now add 2 min for each one of these, and you've already lost 40 mins.

40 mins is the time i usually spent on 1 character to do all the heroics i usually pick, so that's the time i won't be able to spend on another character, which is a lot less money or xp/cxp at the end of the day...

Hey, I get what you're saying, but this still do not add up.

If you are a vanilla story player that has/possibly might have problems clearing slightly hardened content, and who does not touch endgame then why do you need to level up outside of vanilla story content, that by the way levels us up very fast? I mean, I do occasional lowbie pvp for fun, the xp gained that way is just a bonus I don't really need anyway.

If you are an endgamer and you need to level up asap to get new character to endgame, and you are using heroics to meet that goal I understand you want them as quick and easy as possible. But this would be the situation that in order to cater to endgamers' needs you want heroics dumbed down to be quick and easy. I think that in this case BW should provide engamers with other ways of levelling up to get to endgame. IDK, maybe instant max level or something? I'd love to see heroics as optional challenging content, not another daily.

Same goes for credits -there are different ways of making credits, I find the thought that heroic content exists for people to earn credits a bit un-pretty.

That being said, I don't want to have a quarrel over this. Just stating that I'd like to see heroics again as a part of planetary adventure, not daily areas you can teleport to, clear it all up and rush to the next in 2-3 minutes. But that's just my idea of fun game

I agree with the intent. I disagree that it's easy. IIRC they stated before 5.0 that they have no plans to revisit old content, which probably rules out adding different difficulty modes and balancing rewards etc where they didn't exist before.

 

It's just another facet of the general lack of resources this team has had to deal with since, uh, the game went F2P.

hmmm

[/scratches head for a second]

OK .. yeah I can see that ! Programming is almost always more difficult than what is originally perceived.

I was looking at the content / direction and application of said 3 part difficulties as to how it could be used in game beginning with 6.0 IMO... if they can change that difficulty level (as it stands now with the PTS) it could have also been done with the items we posted.

We both agree that since the game went F2P things went down hill.

My intent for the post was to take what was already in place and simply add to / tweak / adjust and make the game more accessible / playable / fun for a wider audience.

Frankly I genuinely appreciate those players who are on both opposite ends of the spectrum: solo and very casual … as well as those who are much more proficient … the elite players. I'm probably one of those stuck in the middle somewhere !

BTW... thanks for the manner in which you responded ! TYVM !

Hey, I get what you're saying, but this still do not add up.

If you are a vanilla story player that has/possibly might have problems clearing slightly hardened content, and who does not touch endgame then why do you need to level up outside of vanilla story content, that by the way levels us up very fast? I mean, I do occasional lowbie pvp for fun, the xp gained that way is just a bonus I don't really need anyway.

 

If you are an endgamer and you need to level up asap to get new character to endgame, and you are using heroics to meet that goal I understand you want them as quick and easy as possible. But this would be the situation that in order to cater to endgamers' needs you want heroics dumbed down to be quick and easy. I think that in this case BW should provide engamers with other ways of levelling up to get to endgame. IDK, maybe instant max level or something? I'd love to see heroics as optional challenging content, not another daily.

 

Same goes for credits -there are different ways of making credits, I find the thought that heroic content exists for people to earn credits a bit un-pretty.

 

That being said, I don't want to have a quarrel over this. Just stating that I'd like to see heroics again as a part of planetary adventure, not daily areas you can teleport to, clear it all up and rush to the next in 2-3 minutes. But that's just my idea of fun game

I am a story player, and don't care about endgame, like at all.

Except the Vaylin fight without Dramath, i don't have much problem doing anything storywise, but spending most of my time killing trash or taking forever to kill 1 boss is absolutely NOT fun to me.

Last time i actually made the lvling outside of the story was because i wanted to record the playthrough for my 8 mains, and being lvl 70 with 230 gear while recording simply meant that i could clean the trash faster. Other that that i do my lvling mostly while playing the story, but even like that you still have to get some xp outside the story else you're underleveled by the time you reach Corellia (at the very least on a stealth character who skips most of the trash).

About credits, to each their own, i'd rather play heroics than craft items for instance, which i find really boring and you need credits to craft anyways.

And in the end we just don't have the same idea of what's fun, because clearly what's fun to you is absolutely boring and not fun to me and probably what i find fun is too easy or boring to you.

Respectfully...

 

My post was not based on finding a resolution for the one fight with Vaylin.

 

Your post may not have been directed at my response thus far. If that is the case … let me apologize in advance !

 

That said … in case others might be wondering. The idea was to take what we already had (past tense now) … build / improve / adjust and make better.

 

IMO... that is not what we will be getting.

Ah, no not directed at you. There were a couple of people commenting on the Vaylin fight a page or two back. I was just lazy and didn't feel like going back to quote 2-3 people.

Ah, no not directed at you. There were a couple of people commenting on the Vaylin fight a page or two back. I was just lazy and didn't feel like going back to quote 2-3 people.

Ah … OK .. got it !

TYVM for clarification !!

The following would be a good solution:

Multiple instances. For Story Mode/ Veteran Mode/ Master Mode. You can switch back and forth as you like.

But probably costs too much.

The following would be a good solution:

 

Multiple instances. For Story Mode/ Veteran Mode/ Master Mode. You can switch back and forth as you like.

But probably costs too much.

This would probably be the best option as anyone would be free to set the difficulty they want.

There are a lot of people jumping the gun here on how difficult the changes will be.

The pts 3 was up specifically to test balance around the changes and nothing was set in stone. Somethings were definitely extreme and others were balanced.

The idea of the testing was to provide valuable player feed back to Bioware on what was playable for certain types of players. A bunch of us played on the pts to provide that feed back.

Bioware now has it. There will be no pts 4 and they will have to work on that feed back to try and balance based on what we provided.

If you didn’t bother to represent your player type, then you really can’t complain if changes are made based on what other people perceive as balanced.

I had unsubbed and was on preferred, but decided to come back to test because I didn’t want to by a hypocrite. If you test and provide feed back and Bioware listen, then you can affect change to make the game better for you and hopefully everyone else. But if you choose not to test, you really can’t complain about changes other people have recommended.

For the record, so I don’t get accused of only wanting the game harder, I tested with my wife as well. She is the epitome of a story player who likes it easy (probably easier than Ion). I gauged her ability to clear content when providing my own personal feed back regarding SM or vanilla difficulty. If she could clear it easily, then it wasn’t balanced. If she couldn’t pass it at all even with my encouragement (help), then it wasn’t balanced. If she had to think about what she did instead of running in like a turkey, then it was more balanced for story mode content.

There were definitely some unbalanced content, but also some really close to balanced content. Neither her or I found any content that was too easy. The things she couldn’t get passed were actually unbalanced in some huge ways. I tested anything she couldn’t get past to double check.

This was the info I provided Bioware so they could adjust the balance around that content.

Here is an example of one chapter section I re-tested twice when my wife could get through it.

You will notice at the end in my “statement”, that I found the rest of the chapter balanced for SM.

Bioware will have looked at all of the feed back like mine and also their own internal statistics on how many times players were dying or not able to continue.

The more people that test, the more info Bioware have from player feed back and just as importantly, their own data. Anyone who thinks they don’t also look at their data to show how many people were struggling or had it too easy, are just being naive. This is why they ran incentives to get people to run the same stuff over and over. Bioware know that 90% of people on the pts aren’t going to jump on the forums and provided a detailed analysis and numbers. Many on the pts were only there for the achievement, which is fine because the more people, the higher the data set.

Will everything be 100% balanced when it goes live? I highly doubt that. Not because Bioware won’t try or that they’ll make it purposely hard to cater to one group. But because there just weren’t enough people testing to gather enough stats on the “whole” game. And also because I don’t think they have enough time.

What will most likely happen is when the expansion goes live, they will use that data and hopefully more player feed back to make more adjustments.

I think it’s really simple at this point. Stop blaming other people’s preferred style of play for any decisions Bioware make. Wait till the 22nd and let’s see how it turns out. If it’s still not balanced they will have to keep making tweaks to do so, if they don’t, then it will drive a bunch of people out of the game from both sides of this debate.

Balance is what’s needed. Not too hard for Story people and not too easy for other people. Of course there will be some at the extreme ends of both spectrums who will find it too hard or too easy, but you can’t please everyone.

The following would be a good solution:

 

Multiple instances. For Story Mode/ Veteran Mode/ Master Mode. You can switch back and forth as you like.

But probably costs too much.

Exactly this ^^

Which is both reasonable and logical. And which has been suggested to Bioware by just about anyone who has asked for the vanilla content to be made harder again.

No reasonable person wants to ruin another players fun or make it so they can’t play the game the way they enjoy it.

The above solution is the one that accomodate everyone.

But everytime I’ve suggested this in the past, I’ve been attacked by some people (who are actually in this thread) stating they don’t want this because then everyone is seperate and it doesn’t feel like an MMO.

Their solution fo people who want difficult content always comes back to taking your gear off or putting your comp on passive. Which isn’t how the game was designed and it’s not reasonable to expect players to do so.

It comes back to what’s fair. You can’t please everyone, but you can accomodate most by having a system like the one batwar has suggested.

We already have a pvp instance. Why can’t we just have a SM, veteran and MM instance too? Or at the very least, have a SM and Veteran/HM instance.

I think the issue is probably a technical and cost one that is stopping them.

 

[/snip - snip - snip]

 

I think it’s really simple at this point. Stop blaming other people’s preferred style of play for any decisions Bioware make. Wait till the 22nd and let’s see how it turns out. If it’s still not balanced they will have to keep making tweaks to do so, if they don’t, then it will drive a bunch of people out of the game from both sides of this debate.

Balance is what’s needed. Not too hard for Story people and not too easy for other people. Of course there will be some at the extreme ends of both spectrums who will find it too hard or too easy, but you can’t please everyone.

Agreed...

It's not each other that we need to get upset with. When it gets right down to it we all have different styles of gaming... It's just that simple. BW knows that.

That is why I posted this:

Regardless of what it was .. or will be... there was at one time an easy solution.

 

Three / four levels of play.

1. Solo / group / story

2. Solo / group / Veteran

3. Elite / group / solo

 

The makings of this simple 3 tiered levels of play are easy to understand. Drops / Gear / rewards from each would be reflective of each. Players who would prefer to start out in Solo mode … gather gear might choose to take steps into a more difficult area and earn even better rewards … etc.

 

The foundation for this has already been laid. All that was needed was to "REFINE" the process and make it available to players regardless of what part / stage of the game they are in.

 

EDIT:

 

Current system already in place on live game includes the following found under Activities in the drop down menu ( look under the triangle: Content ) This is already set up in this fashion.

 

GROUP

Ops

Uprisings : Veteran

FP's: Veteran

FP's: Master

 

SOLO

Heroics

Dailies

FP's

How easy would have been to simply improve on the process ….

 

 

BUT even then IMO... some would prefer to gripe and complain that BW is catering to someone !! Some will complain regardless.

 

Well... from what I have seen BW did the only thing that they could do. They ignored everyone and made up whatever they felt like !!

 

Was it really so much to ask to have something that offered a level of game play in the above mentioned 3 tiered system ?

 

I know .. I get it ! It's a suggestion ! It is similar to something someone else suggested ages ago (sorry too lazy to go look it up).

BUT that idea used what was available and built upon it.

IMO... over all BW pretty much ignored MOST of all of the feed back that was provided on the PTS. It does appear that maybe there are some changes for crafting coming. I do hope the best for those who are involved with that aspect of the game.

6.0 is coming ! I can almost feel it.

For now .. I will sit tight .. be patient and wait.

I will remember !