how do you know what MOST people do in this game? I do mostly vanilla planets. If the heroics are made faceroll again on those planets, I won't play anymore.

 

Your problem is you assume YOU are an average casual player in this game, therefore you think the game should be made exactly as you like it. Well guess what, there are all kinds of casual players in this game, and only BW (hopefully) know what kind of players represent the majority and is their target audience to cater to.

And what about heroics that are in daily areas, like section X where you can't even find a group. Lucky for me I know how to work that heroic so not a problem for me, and if my boyfriend and/or guild members are on, bingo I have some help but what about those that don't and can't find help in those. Even before the "level sync" people had trouble getting people to group up for that particular heroic. I can remember when doing it before and starting to look for a group just as I started the area and even when I got to the heroic still no one wanted to do it and now it is worse as very few people do that daily area and finding a group there is 10x worse than it was.

Your assuming YOU are.

 

With HM chapters etc there was already challenging content for casuals who wanted such.

There are zero options now for casuals who DON'T want this.

No, I'm saying different people want different things. And only BW might know what to do to cater to most player's wishes and keep the game healthy. I'm happy with companions in 6.0 (more then in 4.0 and 5.0 anyway), you are not. None of us knows if that makes most people happy or angry.

I do by seeing what happened before 3.0 and did you see how deadly it was in Section X where ppl asked to change the heroics? That's how MMO works. If you don't make new content, ppl leave. If they are still hard, then nobody would do them anymore.

 

What are you talking about? The heroics are not facerolls, they were buffed up for top level players to do, before that they were easy stomps once you get 8-9 levels higher.

You seem to have a problem with logic in your arguments, or perhaps you are answering to someone else and have the posts mixed?

As to why people left the game long time ago (and I do not believe we were having this discussion on that topic?):

I've read many theories why many people left the game after launch (it was pre 2.0 era) and the game difficulty was a really weak one.

Basically what would answer your problems is: get rid of level sync and get the game back to 3.0 state. That way you could go back to vanilla planets at max level and face roll them. And people who want an engaging game at planet level would have it to.

You seem to have a problem with logic in your arguments, or perhaps you are answering to someone else and have the posts mixed?

As to why people left the game long time ago (and I do not believe we were having this discussion on that topic?):

I've read many theories why many people left the game after launch (it was pre 2.0 era) and the game difficulty was a really weak one.

Ppl leave when there is no new content, it' the basic logic of all MMO. Most of the "difficult" games failed even worse than SWTOR.

Basically what would answer your problems is: get rid of level sync and get the game back to 3.0 state. That way you could go back to vanilla planets at max level and face roll them. And people who want an engaging game at planet level would have it to.

Sure, that's what I've been asking for so long.

Here are my personal feelings:

 

1. I haven't had problems with normal Story Mode content at all. I enjoy the increased difficulty in these instances and story leveling planets. Bosses from your class story still die very, very quickly (The major story bosses should be a tad more difficult I think, merely the difficulty of a gold mob, for example, nothing extreme). This is both on toons with a lvl 50 comp and others with level 10 comps.

 

2. Heroic 2+'s and Heroic 4+'s were specifically retuned by the devs to be soloable for a single player with a high comp and decent performance of their class. This was done to allow players to run this content without requiring a group. After all, groups RARELY form for any of these missions. This was the case since LONG, LONG AGO. Hardly anyone ever grouped up for these missions starting at least 4 years ago or more.

 

3. Most Heroic 2's are fine for characters who are leveling up AND WHO HAVE LEGACY PERKS. This last part is important, because the buffs from having all 4 classes make a big difference, and so do the Unity and Heroic Moment utilities. This fact may be one reason for the difference in difficulty perception between long-time players and newer players.

 

4. There are some H4's that are no longer realistically solo-able, unless you happen to be a stealth character. I have heard that some H2's are also very, very hard to solo EVEN WITH A LVL 50 Comp, which is a problem. Getting a companion to level 50 should not used as the baseline for balancing content. Players with a level 10 comp should struggle. Players with a level 50 comp should have a relatively easy time soloing things. Otherwise, why the heck should I level my comp if I'm still going to be unable to solo the content I want?

 

5. Personally, I don't think (at this time) Veteran flashpoints should be soloable. There's no reason to run them by yourself, other than wanting better rewards than SM version. There are plenty of opportunities to run this content with other players, and there's SM, so please don't complain about difficulty when it comes to soloing VM FPs.

 

6. Many Story Uprisings are no longer soloable, even with a lvel 50 comp. This is unacceptable, personally, because it's almost impossible to get a group for many of these. Story mode should be balanced as before, so a lvl 50 comp makes it easy to get through these without issues. Vet Uprisings and MM Uprisings should require a group, and they should offer better rewards to incentivize running them.

 

7. The Eternal Championship can no longer be soloed at the appropriate level, even with a level 50 comp. The entire purpose of this type of content is to be able to solo it, which is no longer possible. At max level, it is doable but much more difficult than before. I'm fairly confident that the speed feat is now impossible for most players to obtain.

 

8. Star Fortresses 2+ are no longer soloable in most cases (depends on whether toon has stealth and which boss you face at the end). This is another type of content that is not available to run unless you run it solo.

 

9. I haven't run through VM chapters and MM chapters of KOTET or KOTFE yet, but that's my plan this coming week. I'll let you know how it goes. Again, remember this is content designed to be SOLOed. A player with a lvel 50 comp and good knowledge of class/defensives should be able to complete it, yes? Are we all on the same page there?

We are on the same page here and I agree with what you wrote. What it means is BW should check the mobs/bosses in those instances (including story main bosses like Baras) and manually adjust them.

KOTET/KOTFE should be at roughly the same difficulty level as vanilla planets. Star Fortresses were at very cool difficulty level when first introduced and should be tuned to be like that now. Same for Eternal Championships.

What would be really bad is if they just didn't bother with checking those few content areas and fixing them, but just buffed up companions for ALL of the game. This lazy approach is what destroyed SWTOR with 4.0 for me, and may very well destroy it now for some new player trying to do KOTFE and find it impossible (if true. I did KOTFE/KOTET enough times to know I don't want to do them again, so IDK about their difficulty)

Sure, that's what I've been asking for so long.

Be careful what you ask for. In 3.0 comps were also a lot suckier and the leveling content was harder than today? Are you saying that you want a harder leveling experience now? You do surprise me sometimes.

And what about heroics that are in daily areas, like section X where you can't even find a group. Lucky for me I know how to work that heroic so not a problem for me, and if my boyfriend and/or guild members are on, bingo I have some help but what about those that don't and can't find help in those. Even before the "level sync" people had trouble getting people to group up for that particular heroic. I can remember when doing it before and starting to look for a group just as I started the area and even when I got to the heroic still no one wanted to do it and now it is worse as very few people do that daily area and finding a group there is 10x worse than it was.

Pretty much this..

I don't have a Guild. well I do, but everyone in my guild LEFT . we had 2 leaders, and they started fighting over that stupid Flagship ownership, and next thing you know..they took a bunch of peoples and left . when I came back one day, I was the only one left in the guild . There are toons parked there, but nobody ever login anymore . So the Ownership of the guild which is called (WE HAVE JAWA), keep buzzing to me and one dude...I never see him around, but when I go preferred..he get it . Then when I sub..I get it back lol .

Back in the day, nobody would do the heroics . So you end up with heroic like VOSS, Hoth, in a back log . when you rarely find anyone, they either do just one and bail, or bail half way trough for reasons .

So when they turned the Heroic+ 4 to SOLO..I was happy . The heroic are the only thing I grind, cose I can do them without feeling bored (Old sense of kicking their butts from old time, revengeeeeee! lol) .

The only solution would be that they give us something like for KOTFEKOTET chapter and let us choose. I'm not grouping for them...EVER . Been there, done that .

Don't feel like arguing with holier-than-though types that enjoy being contrarian in the forums....

Just want to say to the OP, I'm right there with you. They lost a sub as soon as mine runs out, b/c that's the only way the devs are going to hear any sort of votes. With all the changes, this certainly isn't "playing my way." I get zero enjoyment out of hitting the NPC twice as many times and now dying if I don't set my comp on heal all the time. Heroics were fun, now they just drag. Weeklies now lack any incentive with the change to Galactic Renown. I don't feel like farming HS and RR to gear up so now I'm under-geared for OPs and not participating at all. So, there's no reason to be a sub any longer. I'm just going to let it expire and "play my way" which translates to revisiting the core stories while the game is still around.

Don't feel like arguing with holier-than-though types that enjoy being contrarian in the forums....

You mean exactly the types like the op, who blatantly called all the players who enjoy a challenge and appreciate the change wrong and his ilk right. Talk about solipsism...

You mean exactly the types like the op, who blatantly called all the players who enjoy a challenge and appreciate the change wrong and his ilk right. Talk about solipsism...

There are challenging content, why mess up with solo content and you have the option to have challenge if you want to.

You mean exactly the types like the op, who blatantly called all the players who enjoy a challenge and appreciate the change wrong and his ilk right. Talk about solipsism...

This forum is the one place any of us have to officially complain about game play changes. It's the only place. If you do so in-game to customer service, you are directed to post on the forums.

So, the op comes along and gets things off their chest... that's not being self-righteous. Everyone commenting in this thread had a choice to ignore it or engage. Everyone who chose to engage had a choice to do so constructively or to troll.

Granted, the same is true for the op who could just ignore anyone that they don't feel is being constructive. Pretty sure most of what could be said from either perspective was likely said by the third or fourth page. I wasn't here at the start, so I said my piece now. With that, I'm moving on to more productive endeavors and maybe I'll log back in over here in a week or two.

The problem with this is, if you found the content too easy, there was always a way to make it more challenging. But if you found it too hard, you can't make it easier. Trying to get people to do heroics is like pulling teeth, sometimes you get a tooth straight away, other times you are smacking your face off the keyboard and nothing is happening.......

Personally I think the nerfed the healers too much, it takes too long for them to heal, or even do anything, especially on the newer ones.

The problem with this is, if you found the content too easy, there was always a way to make it more challenging. But if you found it too hard, you can't make it easier.

As much as I'm against those difficulty changes in the open world (group content is - in my opinion - well balanced at this moment) there sort-of is a way to make it easier. Got myself full 306 gear (30 stacks of the boost on low level planets; check your stacks after arriving or changing instance as they sometimes disappear due to a bug; remove and re-equip any piece of gear to get them back), set bonus and a nice tic-tac on top of that. Tested it on a few heroics and things seem to die as fast if not faster than in 5.0.

Does everyone remember the White Acute Module?

Something like it could be useful here, a free token from a vendor *everyone* can access, could even make it bound on legacy. Unlike the WAM, though, it wouldn't nerf xp gains. Instead, it would hugely buff the way level sync works for characters, and buff companions. BW could make the planets tough as a standard, but then point to that power module vendor for people who wanted things much easier. I know I'd take advantage of it, I'd be able to undertake my solo heroic grind again, as well as solo the BBA Kingpins once more. Companion damage, defence and healing would be buffed with such a module, and character power, endurance, mastery, and so on, would also be buffed.

See, the big changes to 6.0 were the nerfs to comps, *and*, but it wasn't shown in any of the patch notes, the nerfs to players regarding the level syncs, that turned characters into wet paper with less damage, and even less health.

So, I think a token to allow character and companion buffing could be great. There could be separate ones for buffing just a character, or just your active companion. There could be ones to nerf you and your active comp, if you wanted.

Having a second companion as an option would be nice, too! A nod to the Kotors, and the trinity could be properly respected.

There are as many experiences of difficulty as there are players playing, but, surely, there can be some way to make everyone who really wants to be happy, and not just indulge in schadenfreude, happy. From the greatest challenge-seeker to the most casual/solo/casual solo player.

One size fits all just isn't working. Granted, I didn't complain on behalf of the adrenaline junkies when 4.0 and 5.0 came, but then I'm not one of them, but neither am I demanding that they should be punished for merely existing.

There is just one thing to bear in mind regarding the whole question of accessibility, I'd opine. This is Star Wars: The Old Republic, set in the Star Wars universe, one that's incredibly popular and loved. The game needs to be extremely accessible to all SW fans, everywhere. And, if any of you are playing this game, but not remotely because it's a SW game, I'd be very curious to know why you're playing.

Does everyone remember the White Acute Module?

That would be useful and a great addition. I would actually compare it to the bonuses you can activate on Star Fortress. Whether or not they will actually do this is debatable though, mainly insofar as how optimistic you feel about the devs' thinking process. Like, why would they think that players who've had literal years of easy mode would suddenly all be okay with these changes? Why wouldn't it occur to them to throw a bone to the EZ-mode players in the first place?

I use the WAM regularly. This is another example of something that is very useful for giving players options*, except that it clearly wasn't intended for use outside of 2xp events, and I'm always worried BW will realize players are using it outside of 2xp and get rid of it.

*btw, the 'option' that OP and others have suggested of setting comps to passive and taking off your gear, is completely idiotic. I'm not crazy about the difficulty changes either, but that kind of comment makes me glad the game is unplayable for you. Tying one hand behind your back just to get some challenge from the game is not and never was an appropriate suggestion. It's on the same level as 'git gud'.

How did the people survive when the fellow was not so powerful and needed to be equipped? *sigh*

I think some here did not understand that it could be even harder.

How did the people survive when the fellow was not so powerful and needed to be equipped? *sigh*

I think some here did not understand that it could be even harder.

Yeah I've been through all the route in vanilla, but I don't think it's the right way.

A lot of it was caused by the immature class design and gear system atm. Even if you turn everything back, it's not gonna be the same anymore.

Also remember there was no level sync, which means whatever you can't go through at that time, you can mostly come back and stomp them when you are 10 levels higher. There was also combat droid in solo FP in 3.0 as well.

And we need to spend a lot to burst the companion to level 50, it's not free either.

Still your opinion, not a fact at all.[...].

not an opinion at all, it's a stated fact from bioware when story mode was introduced (feel free to go look it up). just because they suck at doing what they said, doesn't change the intent

Yea, I think they may have gone too far. Because they not only nerfed companions, but they made dailies, heroics, and even story missions much harder as well (in many areas). So unless you are geared (306) and have your companion at 50, many of the solo things you could do became very challenging (even impossible sometimes, or for some people). That makes what many solo players can do more limited. And, that is BS. They pay the same amount of money as everyone else and should have lots of things they can do. "play your own way" ....right?

I also agree that those that wanted more challenging solo content could have provide it for themselves (passive companion, take off some gear, run vet/mm fps/ops, etc.). But casuals can't really make it easier (at least not until they are geared and leveled their companion). Let's face it, some people don't want a challenge, they just want to relax and enjoy the story and playing in the Star Wars universe. And, there money is as good as anyone else's.

fortunately there is a (relatively) quick way to make the game easier for casual players. 1) level you stealth toon to 75 (preferably doing onslaught story to get the 268 gear set). 2) do stealth runs in Red Reaper with another stealth 75. Veteran mode is easy and even casual players can run in and kill the bosses in 20 minutes. The gear will drop like rain, and what doesn't drop you will have plenty of tech frags from your runs to upgrade your lowest pieces. 3) You can get to all 306 gear in a weekend (and find partners on fleet pretty easily). Then you do it again next weekend to get gear for all your other toons (gear is legacy now).

Yea, I know that isn't what you want to do. But you can spent 2 weekends gearing your characters, or struggle week after week slogging through "challenging" content and slowwwwwwlly gearing the hard way. I would rather just spend a couple days gearing and then be done. The rest of the solo content will be easier. And, you can use the tech fragments you get from doing anything to buy your set pieces at your leisure. You should even have enough 306 comps in the bank to outfit a set or three of shells.

It's just an idea. Gear fast and easy, then the story content will be easier.

Who are you to judge me about handling my class?

 

Who are you to care about how others play the game?

 

Who are you to think others don't know how to play their classes?

 

Who are you?

 

Are you the game's designer?

 

 

If you want to play a hardcore game there are tons of other choices as well. WHY didn't you go for it?

 

Who are you to tell others how to play?

 

Good MMO gives every player their ways to enjoy the game. Who are you to stop others?

 

 

Again, who are you to teach others how to play? Different ppl have different style of game. Many ppl got tired of real life and just want to have some fun and it causes no harm to others.

 

Who are you to take out their fun? This is why elitists' faces are so ugly.

It matters to me because when you join our master mode flashpoint and don't know how to play,

It's a definite vote to kick.

There are challenging content, why mess up with solo content and you have the option to have challenge if you want to.

You keep asking this question and don't seem to want to acknowledge the answer: Because people kept complaining about the fact that Solo content has become way too easy even without using a companion. There are quite a number of players who don't do any group content at all in this game and only enjoy doing the stories, running heroics and flashpoints with their companions, creating and dressing alts. They don't look for the challenge in the group content, but the Solo content.

Regardless of the fact what is written in the forums, BioWare and EA are only interested in the internal feedback they get by their data analysts and the evaluation of the information by players who canceled their sub. We all don't know the specifics of that data, but given the changes in 6.0 it is very likely that the majority of people canceling their sub wrote as one of the reasons that the existing solo content is too easy and not challenging enough for them to keep playing.

This forum is the one place any of us have to officially complain about game play changes. It's the only place. If you do so in-game to customer service, you are directed to post on the forums.

 

So, the op comes along and gets things off their chest... that's not being self-righteous. Everyone commenting in this thread had a choice to ignore it or engage. Everyone who chose to engage had a choice to do so constructively or to troll.

 

Granted, the same is true for the op who could just ignore anyone that they don't feel is being constructive. Pretty sure most of what could be said from either perspective was likely said by the third or fourth page. I wasn't here at the start, so I said my piece now. With that, I'm moving on to more productive endeavors and maybe I'll log back in over here in a week or two.

The op started off this thread by saying that BioWare listened to the wrong kind of players, demonstrating his unwillingness to discuss the matter but simply to vent, even before any troll or contrarian could engage in his holier-than-thou attitude.

You already explained a valid action that anyone could take: Cancel your sub and write down that you don't like the difficulty bump in Solo play. Just don't expect everyone to follow suit.

I really don't know where to stand in this. Companions were OP when 4.0. deployed. They nerfed them (with a sledgehammer, of course) when people complained. Then, they buffed them (with a -I dunno- a magic wand?) when some other people complained. And now, they nerfed them (moderately for once, which is surprising) when the first lot complained again. I am not saying they shouldn't listen to community feedback, but regarding this matter, I think that's over-listening.

On one hand, I don't see any point in making solo content harder. What's the point? If you want it to be harder, you can make it harder for yourself. Pull out your gear, for one. What is most frustrating about this is it is mostly the old content that is made harder. It is as pointless as the new gearing system. No point. How I wish they spent their time developing content instead.

On the other hand, a lot of people used their comps to do everything for them while they themselves were arguing with their gfs and bfs on the phone (not that I have any proof of this). When compared to the players, companions were gods. Like I would feel guilty (I guess) for slowing Treek down as she was terrorizing the poor Gormak. And this problem was not solvable by getting my toon naked.

All that said, the companion nerf is moderate. I mean it is not so much. I can still solo the old heroics without needing to turn my comp heals when I am a dps myself, with all my toons. Also I still think Ashara rocks compared to my sin.

To wrap up, I have got nothing to contribute.

Sorry to waste your time.

How did the people survive when the fellow was not so powerful and needed to be equipped? *sigh*

I think some here did not understand that it could be even harder.

A lot of people didn't and quit. Game didn't hold its launch population well at all for a number of reasons. That was one of them - replaying class stories was a tedious grind fest and not appealing to hold peoples attention while they worked on getting end game content sorted.

Instead of making -old- content hard and ripping it away from those who liked it as is, they should have focused on making the new heroics more challenging if they wanted to add more challenge for others.