Why is nobody asking for advice on how to play?

Yes, exactly this. It's not about the quests being too hard, or needing to "play better", it's about it being BORING!

I love dailies and questing and leveling and etc, because it's satisfying to me to churn through the content. Yes, that has always involved knowing how to play my class to maximize profits and time spent, in vanilla, in 2.0, in 3.0, and in 4.0... for the first month. Suddenly, fights are painfully slow, slower than they were at vanilla when I was in Tionese gear with a companion in level 30 gear.

There's a problem here. My daily runs went from taking an hour to taking 2+ hours... not fun. Not fun at all. And not challenging either.

Were you posting the same things in the "comps are OP" threads, or is this reserved for people that disagree with your whining about the game?

There is an entire field of psychology that studies the psychology of gamers, or, what motivates players. Suffice it to say, we all have different motivations for why we play these games, and our particular motivations will determine what we find fun or boring within a game.

We're all also dynamic creatures who are constantly changing, and thus our motivations, and by extension what we find fun or boring within a game, will also change throughout our lifetime.

If that wasn't complicated enough, there is an entire body of research that looks at the mental state one experiences when the challenge of a task and the skill level of a participant do not match up correctly.

So what's my point, exactly?

Some players play games because they are happy applying skills that they're good at. Those types of players will seek out advice on how to play better, and improving at a certain aspect of the game will provide them with the positive feedback their motivation is looking for. But that is just one motivation out of many for playing a game. Other types of players are playing the game for other reasons, and their reasons are no more or less valid than your own.

The most successful games are the ones that allow all players to get the positive feedback from the game that their particular motivations are craving. To 'scratch their metaphorical itch', if you will. Their gameplay allows players to tailor the experience to their preferences as much as possible.

Less successful games tend to tackle every problem with more binary solutions.

MMO didn't mean that you are forced to played in Groups! MMO means only that many Players at the same time Online in the same Environment.

Wow that is some terrible advice, do you even know how to play? You never use a skill to soon that is the fastest way to die.

Tank companions are currently broken, hope they get fixed soon.

I don't get it. You "casuals" (i use quotations as you lot are certainly not casuals) are here for solo content.

But you find solo content tedious and boring...

So need a god comp to rush through it,

Which then leads to what?

Heroics post level 61(?) are now part of the Alliance content (IE what the game expects you to do after finishing KOTFE's chapters), so you're expected to do them. A lot. It's about 80 Alliance crates per Alliance Specialist (320 Crates total) to get a maxed out Alliance. That's 320 Heroics minus whatever crates you buy, not including all the crates you have to spend on Star Fortresses (5 per). Alliance system is a huge grind already.

Pre 4.0 you blazed through Heroics because you could outlevel/outgear them.

Post 4.0 you made your way through Heroics at about average speed because you were downleveled, but your companions made the threat of death minor. Tank mode pulled the whole room and lost 99% health (or died), DPS mode was faster but you risked dying. Healmode was basically slow immortality.

Post 4.0.2 your slowly trudge your way through Heroics because you're downlevelled and your companion can barely heal you against a handful of mobs, and if DPS/Tank mode they usually die often depending on Heroic.



Point being, the grind is still a grind, but now comps are weaker so it's more tedious than before. Especially heals. I have no reason to use a healer, my own off-heals as DPS (Commando) seem better.



Being downlevelled to a Heroic's level doesn't suddenly make it fun, BW knew that from Conquest. But it was bearable if I didn't have to stop and heal to full for every pull cause my DPS/Tank companion dies constantly at Influence 50.

How much is actually needed? If they stick to their 'Story First' principal you shouldn't have to grind heroics at all. Otherwise, they've just dumped the varied and fully voice-acted 'exploration' quests in favor of a boring heroics grinds.

If you're DPS you should be stealing aggro from them left and right and they shouldn't die quite as often. Even as healer I steal aggro from my DPS companions far too often.

Grind will always be grind, question is, is it needed to continue the story?

Simple answer: Yes it is.