Me and my girlfriend have both recently started playing SWTOR. Being our first characters, we have finally met up and started leveling together doing similar quests on each planet and splitting up to do our story class quests when need be. My main question is really what the benefits are vs. the downsides of leveling together like this. For one I see no change in the EXP we gain as the quests happen faster and it's just much more fun to have a partner with you throughout the quests. Also the social aspect gaining social points for the conversations. Not to mention we always have a group of 2 already for Heroics. I just want to know if we're missing something that may influence us to continue or not?

Teaming up only has benefits. Like you said you're already 2 for Heroics and Flashpoints (most you can even chose to do those with 2, but why ruin the fun of teaming up.) Everything is faster, especially if you split up for classquests. The experience you gain whilst teamed up is definitly not lower than when you do things solo, someone even told me it's higher, I never really bothered testing. Social points is a nice bonus aswell.

 

Only possible downside is that some content becomes (even) easier, but I'd say the joys of teaming up balances that out quite well, if not you can always dismiss the companions.

 

Bioware really promotes teamplay, you also get bonusses for being in a guild for that reason.

 

Have fun leveling.

 

PS: Not that this should occur if you do everything together, but try your best staying at the same level. Experience rewards do change depending on which colour your quest is and same for killing foes. All in all if someone outlevels the other, this is a problem that will stay. (Higher level causes decreased XP-gain, resulting in the lower level staying underleveled.) My boyfriend and I had that issue since I did a warzone or 2 each day before he logged on.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Gloomycakes

Me and my girlfriend have both recently started playing SWTOR. Being our first characters, we have finally met up and started leveling together doing similar quests on each planet and splitting up to do our story class quests when need be. My main question is really what the benefits are vs. the downsides of leveling together like this. For one I see no change in the EXP we gain as the quests happen faster and it's just much more fun to have a partner with you throughout the quests. Also the social aspect gaining social points for the conversations. Not to mention we always have a group of 2 already for Heroics. I just want to know if we're missing something that may influence us to continue or not?

 

Note: You do not have to split up to do your class quests. A friend of mine levels with her b/f and they do the class quests together.

 

I have a sage and knight that I level with someone and we do my class quests together as well as doing his. For me the benefits of leveling together are much more than just xp. You never have to worried about being bored and you always have someone with you which is more fun. I have leveled a shadow solo and I find I have more fun leveling with someone than I ever did solo.

 

When the quests get harder you will always have someone there to help and yea you have two people there for heroics which helps.

 

I have another friend that runs dailys with her b/f and she says it goes faster and she enjoys it more.

Edited July 25, 2013 by ScarletBlaze

I play solo and with my partner. IMO its more fun. As the others have said, it goes faster and is not as boring.

I leveled my Shadow from 1 to 50 with my brother's Sentinel; we did every single quest together--which was hilariously fun.

 

I also leveled my Trooper from 1-50 with a friend on his Trooper as well; that was probably the most fun I had leveling, as we really WERE Havoc Squad with 4 armored guys running around constantly. We both did Commando damage, I used Forex and he used Dorn. We facerolled normal quests, barely paused for Heroic-2s, and even did all Heroic-4s without much trouble.

 

When you are both the same basic class though, remember than on Class missions, when you go into the instanced section, the first person to enter will spawn the mission for them only. When you finish you have to come back out then go back in to do the second instance so you both get credit.

Honestly, playing with the same class can be bad. You have to complete every story instance twice and it can get boring and repetitive to watch the same story over and over, even if you are playing different alignments.

 

But if you play two different classes, it can be quite fun. Excluding the sentinel and Gunslinger, you are both capable of different roles, so if you ever find yourself struggling or just want a change of pace, Guardian, Vanguard and Shadows can go tank, Commando, Scoundrals and Sages can go healer. You can also level though instances that way, one of you tank, the other heals and the group finder picks the remaining two members.

 

Replace class names in this post with empire names if Imperial.

I'd always play with my friend.

Yes, first run was Shadow/Shadow. So we kinda just did class instances seperate at the same time. But afterwards always 2 different classes, so we could see 2 stories in one run. Of course achievements and bonusses don't take into account having seen the others story.

 

And I would say, if it wasn't for playing together, I wouldn't play TOR now, cause it's just so much more fun, and the double damage from being with 2 helps going to otherwise super-boring thrash at a proper amount. And that's with a friend, I can assume it gets even better with your girlfriend.

 

In short; If I would have played solo, I would have stopped playing a year ago. Since I don't, I still play.

I think that's far more a "good or bad" decision than wheter or not the XP matches up.

I feel like Bioware deliberately inflated mobs' HP to encourage grouping. While soloing isn't hard, it can be really tedious. That may be inflated by the fact that I usually play, and level as, healers, but I'm not the only one to think time to kill is too high on otherwise easy mobs.

Teaming up only has benefits. Like you said you're already 2 for Heroics and Flashpoints...

Bioware really promotes teamplay, you also get bonuses for being in a guild for that reason.

We see this alot in our guild, and even promote working /leveling together. It helps so everyone can actually learn about the other classes and abilities.

Note: You do not have to split up to do your class quests. A friend of mine levels with her b/f and they do the class quests together

I agree.

Only possible downside is that some content becomes (even) easier, but I'd say the joys of teaming up balances that out quite well, if not you can always dismiss the companions

Not true. Some content, especially when grouped in instanced areas, can have more mobs than someone running solo through the same instanced area. At higher levels, this becomes more prevalent, as the instances go up in difficulty according to the group size.

 

Also, with the addition of the achievement section, you can share kills that are killed while in group, thereby making it easier to get all the planetary kill collections done.

 

Personally, what are you missing out on, by grouping? Nothing really, Having fun with a comrade, and learning more about your toons and that of others can be very rewarding if you take the time to notice. Have fun !!!

I think team play is the best thing about MMO's I can't see any negatives of teaming up with someone else specially close friends or 'lovers'

I've played a ton of characters through to max level in a group, so I definitely see the upside to it.

 

But, to be fair, there is one downside: as you noted, things seem pretty easy when you're leveling in a group. What I found is that playing in a group also plasters over flaws in your playstyle. Soloing characters is more challenging and in a lot of cases forces you to really learn your class to get through some of the tougher content.

 

I didn't really start understanding the importance of interrupts until I soloed my first character to the end of Chapter 1, and when I started doing endgame content with my first level 50 (a Guardian tank that duoed with a friend), I discovered I didn't understand half my powers properly. Etc.

Not true. Some content, especially when grouped in instanced areas, can have more mobs than someone running solo through the same instanced area. At higher levels, this becomes more prevalent, as the instances go up in difficulty according to the group size.

 

If you read my post properly you can see I'm not promoting to level alone and I say 'some' content, considering I responded to the OP meaning his mentioned: Planets, quest, classquests... Making my statement very much true.

 

I could have been more eleborate; it's a fact that this game does not scale up in difficulty if you team up. It depends on area, not on numbers. (It's very clear from the OPs post that they don't play to solely do Heroics, Flashpoints or PvP.) As result a lot of content you're doing as a team was intended to be done by a single player (and their companion.) Meaning you often won't get challanged and for many people this results in not learning certain things they had to learn if they were alone. Some of this includes interrupts, target priority, defensive cooldowns, CC, how to properly gear yourself and your companion and a proper rotation, basicly all the things the poster above me has mentioned. I, for one, absolutely adore leveling with friends, but I notice some are completely incapable of learning their class this way. For a few weeks some didn't even dare to do any end-game content without me because they encountered a lot of flaming for being extremely inexperienced. Such insecurity was horrible to see. And some others simply found the game horrificly boring due to it being so easy, luckily got a chance to prove them wrong with Lost Island and Nightmare EC before they quit the game.

 

As conclusion I'd like to highly recommend doing Flashpoints or PvP, depending where your interest lies. Generally a team is quick and very capable, but try and queue the second a new one opens up. Sometimes it can be a real challange. It will learn you how to prioritize targets, use CC and in case of an inexperienced tank, your defensive cooldowns and how threat works. Loads of people leveling alts can often also give nice tips and tricks on the classes you play. If you are not willing to team up with strangers, do Flashpoints when they are around your level, can be fun and are more than doable. The daily and weeklies make it a nice source of experience aswell.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Gloomycakes

The real in game character progression benefit to levelling with other people is getting social xp and raising that bar. It doesn't make a difference as far as player power goes but does give you a few more options for customization (adaptive armor, mounts). You cannot raise that at all playing solo (minor exception, flashpoints but insignificant gains).

it's a fact that this game does not scale up in difficulty if you team up.

 

Actually, story instances will spawn more enemies if you have three plus players in a group, but not with just two.

Having leveled my Trooper with another Trooper, we did not find it boring at all--plus it was faster to run our class instance twice than to travel to another one. The second one was SOOO fast, as we'd already seen any surprises and just streamrolled even faster than usual. Then if we were going to make a different choice than the first guy, we'd mention it over VOIP so we'd stop Spacebarring to see it.

Actually, story instances will spawn more enemies if you have three plus players in a group, but not with just two.

 

Plus some of those enemies spawn from the ground ( appear out of thin air ) and are elite mobs. i have played the game all the way through a few times in parties of 3 and my word some missions become extremely tough to say the least.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

Awesome posts everyone!! Thanks for the feedback. Sorry I haven't been active on a thread I created in the first place!

 

She's a Guardian and I'm a Sage, so it works out really well and after doing the bonus quests we find the next planet to be even easier for us to level and do all of our quests together. I agree that staying the same level is important (Plus this keeps her happy, for if I didn't . . . -Force choke-)

 

I usually use the time she can't play to level my alt or improve upon my crafting skills. Since we are both rather new we're trying to see how it works out with just the two of us. We've dabbled a bit on joining a guild but most of the time we feel that we should just level up to 55 to see where we feel like then join up with a friendly social guild. She's having a difficult time as she's never played an MMO before and is taking on the tanking job. As where I have a little WoW experience and know generally how the games work. It's fun having us together and I definitely recommend any couple to try and get together on the game as it gives us a chance to connect and have fun all while not going out and spending money on other such entertainment!

She's a Guardian and I'm a Sage, so it works out really well and after doing the bonus quests we find the next planet to be even easier for us to level and do all of our quests together. I agree that staying the same level is important (Plus this keeps her happy, for if I didn't . . . -Force choke-)

 

Husband and I did the same thing, except I am the sage and he is the guardian. He got in trouble for doing the Gree event weekly without me this week. That duo should work really well for you guys -- they complement each other very well while leveling, plus it just makes sense for a pair of Jedi to run around together.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Sarielle

Ha! Awesome. Yeah I think it's great how the game recognizes that you are within a group of players and the conversations proceed accordingly.

 

Thanks for the tips everyone!