Level Sync needs an Off Button! : ).

Same is true of the (especially your) Pro-Sync argument, there is no logical reason for supporting it; all of your supposed arguments in favour have been rebutted numerous times, especially by Artemis.

I'll say this having played through KotFE and some earlier (now level-synced) content over the last 24 hours: Level-Sync is not as badly done as I had feared it would be; but I am still unable to see a) why it was necessary and b) it as a good move, a step forward.

The ONLY thing it has done as far as I can see is to make older "out levelled" content (that most ppl were using for grinding reputation, affection, the odd SH item, mats and comms) far more of a grind - and if there is one thing this game desperately DID NOT NEED as regards reputation and affection it was "more grind".

I like the story of KotFE so far, but the over reliance on cut scenes is clumsy, restrictive and makes the game feel more like a Star Wars cartoon than an MMORPG.

The game, including story-arc content, was IMO immeasurably superior Pre 4.0.

All The Best

So the possible solutions would have been:

1) Revert the Comms merge.
2) Add in a level based trade-in mechanic for Comms (20 Starter Planet Comms = 1 New Comm, 16 2nd Planet Comms = 1 New Comm, and so on).
3) Add in Level-Sync.

1) Could have looked bad from a PR point of view if handled incorrectly, and we already know that BW handles communication with the playerbase and PR badly.

2) Would have needed minimal Dev time and resources, and a LOT less testing than 3), could have been delivered within weeks of the original conversion, and would have been entirely understood by most players - after all nearly every MMORPG out there has some variant of a token trade-in system.

3) Would have:-
i) required the most development resources.
ii) required the most alpha/beta testing.
iii) changed the whole game the most.
iv) been so far outwith the normal processes of the MMORPG industry that it would
v) be guaranteed to garner the most negative feedback.

So on just about every metric we can think of Level-Sync was THE WRONG CHOICE.

So why keep defending it?
More importantly why keep claiming your defence of it is "logical" - when from a business PoV I have just shown it was the most illogical route to take.

All The Best

Well, getting away from the obvious hyperbole.....

I do feel that removing the new awards would be very important. Naturally the individual kill awards could remain in place, considering the credits have been reduced.

So, yes, if a toggle was implemented I think it would have to shut off the heroic rewards. I would contend that perhaps this is why they have not done so, since it might be pretty difficult to change the rewards like that based on a toggle.

If anyone has an example of this already in game, please let me know.

I actually like level sync for leveling a new char. I don't have to worry about overleveling content, I don't have to complain about forced double XP, If I do a flashpoint or PVP while leveling I don' ruin my experience for the next planet.

Sure, leveling is overall easy, but not as boringly easy as it was every other planet pre 4.0.


As for endgame dailies: the daily planets are a lot easier now than back when they were for max level. Even in min-maxed and augmented raid gear for you and your companion you weren't nearly as powerful as you are now in crappy basic or pvp gear. But it's not a total faceroll as it was when your level was so high that the mobs could no longer hurt you.

In 3.0 when you went to Ilum there always was a 60 in the H2 who chain-pulled and slaughtered everything for quick credits. Too bad, if someone in the 50's wanted to do the bonus quest. For everyone who once was on a "kill X mobs" quest while a high level player was rampaging trough the area, level sync doesn't sound so bad.

Try this version on for size:

New from-scratch Trooper->Commando. I did everything on Ord Mantell, except for actually exploring every last square inch of the place. I did every quest, and I might have done the heroics once by myself and once with Jorgan. I went to the Fleet, did the stronghold quest and the remains of the pick-an-AC quest, and then paused. She was, at that point, level 18. She had no guild, and didn't buy, for Ord Mantell, any sort of legacy XP boost perk.

Then I picked her up again, and went to Coruscant via the SLS. I did it with the Jesus droid, but I see no reason why I couldn't have done it without him. I reached Coruscant a few hundred XP short of level 23. I talked to a couple of crew skill trainers for their Codex XP, and gained level 23. At this point, I bought the legacy class XP booster. I did the galactic market stuff and the black sun stuff including the H2s, and found the Gree droid missions (why are they hidden over there, so hard to find except by accident?) and did the galactic market one and the black sun one. I'm about to go into the Justicar zone, carrying the first justicar gree quest, the class quest for that area, the one from Lt Doorn, and the Justicar and Jedi-Temple H2s. My character is level 29.

She has done no FPs except one pass through solo SLS, and no WZ, GF, GSF, etc.

Side note: If the only thing they changed was level sync, I wouldn't have gained so much experience because I would have greyed out loads of quests and zeroed-out mob XP gains. This leads me to the suspicion that level sync is there not to make old content relevant, but to allow them to keep the player's rate of XP gain up.

During the pre-4.0 12xXP phase, I created an Inq->Sorc and leveled her on Korriban. I had an amusing interlude hurriedly studying my skill tooltips(1) while facetanking the bonus champ in Black Talon and reached DK at level 16 - the rest of the group were lower level, 10, 12, 14, and couldn't get aggro off of me. Interesting note: I was level 16 going into BT, and level 16 coming out. Anyway, I arrived on DK, and finished the first class quest, and found that it was level 9, and therefore greyed out. This caused me to apologise on the forums for an error I had made, but also allowed me to satisfy my curiosity about what happened with 12xXP on a greyed-out class quest: the 6XP you gained was not multiplied by 12.

(1) Yes, I know, don't do it like this - read the tool tips when you get the skills, not half-way though a boss fight where the boss is beating you up. I found a bubble skill before the droid found my last health point, at least.

EDIT: Added a needed piece of emphasis.

I've just facerolled the Oricon Heroic 2+ on an under-geared toon that I hardly ever play, and have no real understanding of the skill rotation.

Pre-4.0 the same Heroic 2+ was a struggle on my well-geared main that I played daily.

Levelling is actually easier now.

All The Best

I have yet to see you come up with an actual legitimate reason for level sync to have been implemented in the way that it has, when better alternatives have already been suggested by many players.

News flash, things change. News flash, not all changes are for the better.

What I meant in that quote was doing tatooine at level 40, everything grey, getting neither damage nor XP and useless loot. Basically making the whole planet pointless.

As I wrote:
Oricon isn't leveling, it's level 55 daylies. And yes. They're much easier now than they were at 55 with you and your companion in min-maxed 180s. Still they're not as pointlessly easy as they would be at level 65 without level sync.

That's the general theme of 4.0

With the graphics and sound downgrades, the tons of broken quests in the leveling range, the changes to heroics, crafting and companions, the ability to play flashpoints too early and completely out of context, the bland KotFE story that consists of a couple of cutscenes with little to no regards to your character's origins and no way at all to actually influence anything, level sync is the only somewhat decent and thought-over change of 4.0.

somehow i made the daylies once more today, as i struggeled with the argue: " to make the old stuff relevant again" and i came down loughing the **** out of my ***! there where some former goldstar mobs, that are now turned down to be silver stars, partialy even non stars now! so i guess the argue: " make old things fresh" is completly proven ******** with this, and that by the devs themselves^^ so just get rid of this whole crab! if ya want declare wb areals to level sync areas do so, but get it rid from the rest!