I know I'm going to get a lot of flaks for this, but this is for the sake of me being able to play this game the way I love...

After the patch, this game is too difficult now. And this is coming from somebody who doesn't expect to do PvP or strictly grop content like raids at all. (Although I do veterans FP too).

It used to be that I can solo Heroic +2 alone with DPS companion, and I would need healer comp for Heroic +3 or +4.

Now I need a healer comp for only Heroic +2. I'm afriad I wouldn't be able to solo heroic +3 or +4 at all.

People complained about how setting comp to healer make the game boring since you can survive anything.

Ironically this changes made it so that you MUST use healer comp in heroic now. (Unless you're a healer yourself, obviously)

Also this extends play time a lot, and not in a good way.

There's nothing fun or exciting about tanking shots with some random mobs for 1 minute each.

The game become significantly more grindy and repetitive now.

This has become a major problem for me, and I believe others like me, who play and love this game for its story and dialogue session.

Monotonous grindly combat is robbing us of the story time, therefore I would REALLY appreciate it if you could take this suggestion into consideration and revert the game back before the player/companion nerf.

I haven't done many heroics since the patch but I do agree that content has since become harder. Particularly if you're not in top gear. It seems that the setting for Story combat style isn't working like it used to or at all. I too am pressed for time when I play.

As an example, I used to be able to solo the Star Fortress with a healer companion and my healing character - no more. I did manage to squeak out a solo one with a level 50 healing companion and myself as healer, but barely. Definitely "luck" and I wouldn't try it again.

Use to be able to blow through SF with two players and two high level companions. Went in last week and died 4xs. This is definitely an issue.

If a player has their difficulty set to Story, this shouldn't be happening. That's what the Veteran and Master settings are for.

I agree, I recently came back to the game and have been playing my assassin. now level 75 and geared up to about 284. I still struggle on trash mobs and have no choice but to use a companion as healer. without that, I get beat quick.

And every group of mobs is just mindless button rotation for minutes on end. I don't like the game like this. I am a max level sith assassin with high range gear (with top being what 306 ?) but a few silver or gold stars and I'm dying?

I had to give up on the idea of being DPS spec and going thru flashpoints, trash is troublesome and bosses are too difficult. Tank can survive some boss fights, but its again boring button rotation for 10+ minutes.

We are not supposed to just be another Sith or any other Jedi, we are the commander. taking down armies. but three gold stars and dead.

bring back the solo play that I loved about SWTOR.

yes its to difficult now. its silly. why even chage this and not telling us?

working as intended?

illl bet its a bug that we applaude.

I feel that the nerf to companions and a bump in solo content difficulty was inevitable. Companions have been overperforming ever since 4.0 with the overhaul to companions. At the end of the last expansion (5.10), some companions were dealing upwards of 8k dps, which towers over the dps capabilities of a large majority of the casual playerbase. The same was happening with healing companions.

Did this need to change? I don't think so. Solo and casual players are easily the largest population of SW:ToR's playerbase and bumping up the difficulty for players who enjoy doing content such as heroic missions or solo flashpoints was a bad decision. Not all players have the desire to follow tight, high dps rotations or ramp up their APM's to have a damage, threat or heal output the likes of hardcore raiders or pvp-ers. These things should not be expected of casual players who want to do solo / story content. The game's PvE content is broken up into three difficulties, and story mode material should be easy enough for any player to do solo with a companion and meidcal drops.

I am personally a hardcore player. I like engaging in the difficult content that the game has to offer, and do not find my performance being altered by the bump in difficulty. However I do not account for other players who have been affected by these changes and do not wish to speak for others; only myself. I think that these changes to companions' performance have been a long time coming, but difficulty bumps should have been placed onto the more difficult modes in the game, not story mode or solo content. Casual players should have the ability to run heroics, solo / veteran flashpoints and other story content without having to worry about their capability of defeating groups of enemies or a boss at the end of a mission. Although companions were overperforming in some aspects, they allowed casual players to enjoy doing what they want to do, whereas now with the bump in difficulty some form of strategy is required to clear even the easiest of content.

H4 are for groups or 2 people and 2 companions (Solo should not be feasible). H2 are for 2 people or one + companion. And of course they are hard. The were ridiculously simple before.

You keep saying this so now I am going to ask you a question. What about the Heroic 4 in Section X and please don't say get a group for it because that will be funny. Even before level sync and all the changes you could never find a group for it. You could start looking for a group for it when you arrived and still not find anyone. Next you are going to say, skip it but it is part of the weekly daily so not possible to skip it since it is part of the weekly.

For me not a problem, since I have some stealth characters or if a guild member is on I can get them or my boyfriend to help me but not everyone has that to help them. So how in the world are people going to do that one when you can't get a group for it..........

Well i don't like how it's tuned now either.

Except while doing heroics while underleved with a lvl 1 companion and the very basic DvL armor set or during the walker kind of fights i don't struggle that much, but every fight takes longer which is absolutely boring, i just feel like my character is a shrimp with a glowing stick instead of the Battle Master or the Wrath.

And when random dudes in pajamas fighting with their bare fists do more damage to my armored Sith than they do to them with ther lighting or lightsaber, that's quite immersion breaking (looking at that imp side heroic on Nar Shaddaa)...

I am personally a hardcore player. I like engaging in the difficult content that the game has to offer, and do not find my performance being altered by the bump in difficulty. However I do not account for other players who have been affected by these changes and do not wish to speak for others; only myself.

I appreciate your opinion here and ability to see past your own preference. forums would be much better places if more people did this.

I used to be what I would consider hardcore, but life doesn't allow for it any longer. Which is not the games fault, but I loved being able to progress solo a few hours a night. That progress is now slowed to a crawl, spending hours on content that used to take minutes. I'd like to see some changes to allow us to keep solo'ing.

I'm not opposed to grouping or guilds. But grouping is way too hit or miss to want to take part in too often.. and guilds, usually just a number and while they all state how helpful and active they are, the reality always seems to be the opposite.

Hardcore players really go get a job!!

I have enough problems in real life.

When I enter SWTOR I want roleplaying storyline experience.

I want easy gameplay.I want to solo heroics and flashpoints.

For me not a problem, since I have some stealth characters or if a guild member is on I can get them or my boyfriend to help me but not everyone has that to help them. So how in the world are people going to do that one when you can't get a group for it..........

As i find the fights there absolutely too long and boring, either i go there on a stealth toon, and just run till the end, launch the grenade and suicide jump.

Or, if i'm on a non stealth character i just run till i die (unless i've self heals), get back up where i died, keep runing till the end, launch the grenade and suicide jump.

Most of the times, when i was there i was the only one there, not easy to form a group and i've beter things to do than wait for other people to come, escpecially if the run and die is actually faster than fight all the mobs with someone else...

But well, i've not been there since 6.0 as i don't like that daily area anyways, because it takes too long, and with the changes, i'm quite unlikely to go there anytime soon

I feel that the nerf to companions and a bump in solo content difficulty was inevitable. Companions have been overperforming ever since 4.0 with the overhaul to companions. At the end of the last expansion (5.10), some companions were dealing upwards of 8k dps, which towers over the dps capabilities of a large majority of the casual playerbase. The same was happening with healing companions.

 

Did this need to change? I don't think so. Solo and casual players are easily the largest population of SW:ToR's playerbase and bumping up the difficulty for players who enjoy doing content such as heroic missions or solo flashpoints was a bad decision. Not all players have the desire to follow tight, high dps rotations or ramp up their APM's to have a damage, threat or heal output the likes of hardcore raiders or pvp-ers. These things should not be expected of casual players who want to do solo / story content. The game's PvE content is broken up into three difficulties, and story mode material should be easy enough for any player to do solo with a companion and meidcal drops.

 

I am personally a hardcore player. I like engaging in the difficult content that the game has to offer, and do not find my performance being altered by the bump in difficulty. However I do not account for other players who have been affected by these changes and do not wish to speak for others; only myself. I think that these changes to companions' performance have been a long time coming, but difficulty bumps should have been placed onto the more difficult modes in the game, not story mode or solo content. Casual players should have the ability to run heroics, solo / veteran flashpoints and other story content without having to worry about their capability of defeating groups of enemies or a boss at the end of a mission. Although companions were overperforming in some aspects, they allowed casual players to enjoy doing what they want to do, whereas now with the bump in difficulty some form of strategy is required to clear even the easiest of content.

Thank you very much, because many players like you often go out of their way to try to delegitimise everyone else's perceptions on game difficulty. It is incredibly rare that players like you that players like you say what you just have, because it is thanks to the sync and companion changes (mostly the sync ones, though), that I can't do the basic solo grind now, which BW made to be heroics.

If I, for one, could solo all the planetary content that I could do before 6.0 (namely the heroics, including Oricon's, though I tend to balk at the SX one and Makeb's heroics), and the Bount Event (my favourite event) Kingpins, I'd be back and playing a lot.

Right now, this game feels a great deal like 2.x did for me, save for the fact that I can't overlevel anything. My worst fears about the sync before it came down with 4.0 have now been realised with 6.0. Purple 230s from Command crates and vendors? I may as well not have bothered...

There was nothing wrong with 5.x's sync, they need to revert to that, make sure companions are working properly (they feel like they're half asleep now, especially tanking comps), and come up with a better way.

It could be as I quoted here from another thread, it could be something else:

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.

 

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.

A proviso, it couldn't be used in PvP-flagged areas, neither instanced, nor Open world.

I appreciate your opinion here and ability to see past your own preference. forums would be much better places if more people did this.

 

I used to be what I would consider hardcore, but life doesn't allow for it any longer. Which is not the games fault, but I loved being able to progress solo a few hours a night. That progress is now slowed to a crawl, spending hours on content that used to take minutes. I'd like to see some changes to allow us to keep solo'ing.

 

I'm not opposed to grouping or guilds. But grouping is way too hit or miss to want to take part in too often.. and guilds, usually just a number and while they all state how helpful and active they are, the reality always seems to be the opposite.

Hear hear! Besides which, why should I have to play the game to other people's speeds, rather than my own?

I did a lot of KDY runs back when that was *the* way to power-level the many alts that I had, grouping has always been mostly a nightmare. I don't do the group content, I don't try to solo the group content. I will *not* group up with anyone but friends in this game, precisely because I don't play this game to be a masochist. Why must a game being an MMO mean that solo play should be sidelined, in the eyes of some people? To "it's an MMO, find a group", I say, unreservedly, no thanks! I'd like to keep my sanity intact...

As I said above, the heroics became the basic solo grind for people with 4.0, they stealth-gated them with the changes.

Remember, they did *not* inform of any changes to the sync in the 6.0 patch notes, nor in any subsequent ones!

For the longest time, and the complaints on the forums peaked in 5.0, people complained the game was too easy.

Guess what. It's one time EA listened.

The forum posters got what they asked for, to hell with the other players who liked it the way it was.

Nobody ever hits the forums to say "I just want everybody to know that I played for 2 hours today just the way I wanted and it was absolutely fine."

Hardcore players really go get a job!!

I have enough problems in real life.

When I enter SWTOR I want roleplaying storyline experience.

I want easy gameplay.I want to solo heroics and flashpoints.

this so much

For the longest time, and the complaints on the forums peaked in 5.0, people complained the game was too easy.

Guess what. It's one time EA listened.

 

The forum posters got what they asked for, to hell with the other players who liked it the way it was.

 

Nobody ever hits the forums to say "I just want everybody to know that I played for 2 hours today just the way I wanted and it was absolutely fine."

Tbh, I'm not convinced it was intentional. AFAIK, they haven't stated they were aiming to make the game harder with 6.0 (though it's possible I missed it). The impression I got was they were trying to make tweaks to level sync, probably to make certain parameters more uniform.

I suspect what happened is the person/people who made the level sync into the place it was at prior to 6.0 is/are no longer on the team and when they went to tweak level sync for 6.0, they didn't understand how (apparently) fragile the balance of the different elements are, such that even minor tweaks can throw things off to such an extent that it's the difference between a significant percentage of players being able to, for example, solo some or all H2s with a DPS companion versus not.

The fact that level sync cuts out so many of the higher level gains to substitute them for a more confined system synced to the level means that with a lot of the content, it's like we're not even playing at max level. So I think that makes for a far more fragile system and it almost undermines the RPG element of the game, in the sense that leveling up and gearing up doesn't necessarily mean the content will be any easier. And, in fact, if the balance is off, it could mean it becomes harder.

I think a way, perhaps, to lessen the degree of this problem would be (for instanced content) to have mobs level up rather than you level down. IIRC, this has been done in the past for things like flashpoints and still is. But... it may still just be moving the goalposts to another problematic place. If the issue is one of balancing and the content was only designed for X level, it may be that the only way to make it work effectively is to NOT follow uniform rules (much) and instead focus on individual application for the target circumstance. After all, one would assume individual bits of content are tested primarily with the target level they are made for, throughout the game's history, so naturally most of the tweaking of that content outside of uniform parameters is going to be relative to the level it was made for and is not made for other levels at all.

In short, they probably should have left level sync alone, without extremely careful consideration. But it may be level sync was already going to be screwing things up with the addition of level 75 and so they were responding to that as an issue, reactively. I think level sync, at least insofar as it has been implemented in this game and how it's tended to play out, is a tempting and misleading simplification of something that has to be designed around with more detail work. Sometimes automation and sweeping solutions aren't the answer. And sometimes they can be, but the implications of what they're doing are only superficially understood in data points and can be riddled with logical errors that are virtually invisible until the wrong kind of tweak is made or action is taken.

The impression I got was they were trying to make tweaks to level sync, probably to make certain parameters more uniform.

Making certain parameters more uniform isn't a goal unto itself, it servers a purpose we're not privy to.

All we really know, the game got somewhat harder for everyday casuals after a good many forum posters complained the game was too easy. Beyond that, we don't know the why of the situation.

Making certain parameters more uniform isn't a goal unto itself, it servers a purpose we're not privy to.

All we really know, the game got somewhat harder for everyday casuals after a good many forum posters complained the game was too easy. Beyond that, we don't know the why of the situation.

I'm not convinced it couldn't be a goal unto itself. Sometimes in design and programming, there is an appeal to make something "cleaner," even though it already works. This can have a practical purpose, such as making a system easier to tweak or add to down the road. But it could also be more of a housecleaning thing, where somebody gets the idea in their head that something needs to be more consistent, or make more sense, or otherwise fit in a way that it currently doesn't.

Sometimes nothing bad happens as a result and the thing is improved. Sometimes it results in someone who doesn't know why the thing was done the way it was done (or did know and has forgotten) trying to fit a round peg into a square hole because they want all of the pegs to be in square holes and it just results in things becoming messier.

But my speculations aside, I agree with you, of course. We don't know the reason. None (that I'm aware of) was given. I'm not sure they've even acknowledged it beyond some shallow feedback back and forth on PTS forums prior to the expansion.

At the very least, they owe us proper explanations for why they've done what they've done.

Especially, and, as I keep saying this, none of the 6.x patch notes revealed any changes to the level sync.

I think they were intentional, the way all their stealth nerfs are, they threw us a bone with the companion changes as a distraction, because they thought we might think those changes were reasonable.

But to make those changes *and* obliterate the level sync? They knew what kind of a firestorm they were creating...

Listening to the forums isn't always the best way, I mean, are we absolutely sure that everyone who plays the game is 100% vocal on the forums? I think not...

I know I'm going to get a lot of flaks for this, but this is for the sake of me being able to play this game the way I love...

 

After the patch, this game is too difficult now. And this is coming from somebody who doesn't expect to do PvP or strictly grop content like raids at all. (Although I do veterans FP too).

 

It used to be that I can solo Heroic +2 alone with DPS companion, and I would need healer comp for Heroic +3 or +4.

 

Now I need a healer comp for only Heroic +2. I'm afriad I wouldn't be able to solo heroic +3 or +4 at all.

 

People complained about how setting comp to healer make the game boring since you can survive anything.

Ironically this changes made it so that you MUST use healer comp in heroic now. (Unless you're a healer yourself, obviously)

 

Also this extends play time a lot, and not in a good way.

There's nothing fun or exciting about tanking shots with some random mobs for 1 minute each.

The game become significantly more grindy and repetitive now.

 

This has become a major problem for me, and I believe others like me, who play and love this game for its story and dialogue session.

 

Monotonous grindly combat is robbing us of the story time, therefore I would REALLY appreciate it if you could take this suggestion into consideration and revert the game back before the player/companion nerf.

What's your gear rating? 306 gear really helps.

What's your gear rating? 306 gear really helps.

And that is the big problem, gear only helps with the sync if it's the max rating. You may as well be naked, otherwise.

If it's as hard as it is now to solo things that we used to be able to solo, then why have the Story mode combat difficulty setting option?

Finding groups is hard, even for people in guilds (I'm in a big one). Especially if your guild is not doing the content you want to do.

I loved being able to solo through story relevant content, particularly SF, and now I can't. Finding a group for SF is near impossible. Getting killed on trash is absurd when you're pressed for time and want to progress.

For the "hard core" the game has veteran and master combat difficulty settings on portrait right-click. Story difficulty should be soloable with decent gear and a high-level companion. It is not.

Hardcore players really go get a job!!

I have enough problems in real life.

When I enter SWTOR I want roleplaying storyline experience.

I want easy gameplay.I want to solo heroics and flashpoints.

Agreed.

And that is the big problem, gear only helps with the sync if it's the max rating. You may as well be naked, otherwise.

Agreed. I'm about 272 on some and 280 on others and still dying on pre-75 content that I was able to solo pre-patch.