I'm playing through my first character and almost to the end of Act Two, which has gotten me thinking about the future. I would love to play through all eight class storylines, but the idea of doing the same sidequests 4 or 8 times leaves me cold.

 

How feasible is it to play JUST the story missions? This would clearly result is less experience (so lower level) and less coin (so less equipment). How crippling would that be? Has anyone tried it?

 

Secondary question: If just the storyline is not feasible, does anyone have suggestions on the quickest/most efficient way to offset things? I've got a wife and a three-year-old and they've been very patient with me as I play through my Jedi Knight, but I don't see that patients lasting through 7 other classes.

You can't do just the story missions, but you can skip a lot of things, make sure you get as much XP as you can from everything you do, legacy character XP unlocks, XP boosters, rest XP and you should at the least be able to drop all the bonus series and maybe even much of a few planets

I'm playing through my first character and almost to the end of Act Two, which has gotten me thinking about the future. I would love to play through all eight class storylines, but the idea of doing the same sidequests 4 or 8 times leaves me cold.

 

How feasible is it to play JUST the story missions? This would clearly result is less experience (so lower level) and less coin (so less equipment). How crippling would that be? Has anyone tried it?

 

Secondary question: If just the storyline is not feasible, does anyone have suggestions on the quickest/most efficient way to offset things? I've got a wife and a three-year-old and they've been very patient with me as I play through my Jedi Knight, but I don't see that patients lasting through 7 other classes.

 

Good luck keeping your character leveled enough to do them...

 

The planet quests are there to help you develop your character. There aren't nearly enough main story ones to level you up far enough to even stay high enough to 2 planets in quick succession, let alone all of them.

I'm playing through my first character and almost to the end of Act Two, which has gotten me thinking about the future. I would love to play through all eight class storylines, but the idea of doing the same sidequests 4 or 8 times leaves me cold.

 

How feasible is it to play JUST the story missions? This would clearly result is less experience (so lower level) and less coin (so less equipment). How crippling would that be? Has anyone tried it?

 

Secondary question: If just the storyline is not feasible, does anyone have suggestions on the quickest/most efficient way to offset things? I've got a wife and a three-year-old and they've been very patient with me as I play through my Jedi Knight, but I don't see that patients lasting through 7 other classes.

 

I tend to only really level this way - >

 

1. Skip all/most side missions

2. Do space missions when they're listed as orange/and obviously do them when they first appear for the extra xp

3. Do my daily warzones

4. Kill so trash here and there as i make my way around doing class quest

5. All of this need's to be done with the legacy xp perks purchased, or it doesn't work so well.

6. With the introduction of the xp boosts, i often get a 1 or 3 hour boost.

7. You can get a decent amount of xp from maxing out your companions affection. Their missions become available as you progress through the story, but if you say.. wait till level 40, and then do all the convo's at once, you'll get a level or so out of it.

8. Occasionally do solo heroics if you have the gear/skill to do so.

 

This has worked for the two 50's i have, and a 3rd level 45.

Rolling an alt on the other side is a good way to get a completely fresh experience.

With all of the legacy xp boosts unlocked, I can get through doing only the class and planetary quests and still stay on level. you may need to do a FP here and there but I no longer do the side quests unless it's an easy on that I can do on the way to my next destination. Good luck.

I only warzone and then run through all the class missions of a planet once i have gained enough levels to complete the planet. If you have a crafting skill that can help keep you geared it works out pretty well, ie you always have enough creds for your abilities, gear and speeder 1 & 2., Space mission dailies and flashpoints help a lot if you like them.

 

I never tried it but if you have rested XP, legacy and cartel XP boost and only do WZ daily, space daily. flashpoints and class missions that might just work out

I'm currently working on my sniper, having bought every XP perk and running with the +25% XP bonus consumable at all times.

 

Each planet (for the most part) is 4 levels above the previous (Balmorra 16-20, Nar Shadaa 20-24, Alderaan 24-28, etc)

 

But with all these leveling perks, the class quests alone provide maybe 2 levels worth of XP per planet. The choices to augment the XP are:

 

1. Warzones

2. Space Missions

3. Side Quests

 

You'll have to do at least one of those 3 things to not fall too far behind. Once you hit 5 levels below mobs, they keep resisting / dodging most of your attacks. Even if you could kill them, it takes so long it's not worth it. I found this out the hard way on Belsavis when I spent 5 minutes killing one guy.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Khevar

How feasible is it to play JUST the story missions?

 

I have a character that has maxxed out all exp perks and basicly only does story missions, flashpoints and PvP

 

It has worked so far

Like others have stated, this is entirely possible. I played through the class story on my Marauder so many times in beta that it's been almost a year since launch and I still haven't leveled him

 

I do the following now to level my alts

 

1.) Max out all of the character perks in my legacy.

2.) Purchase packs of Major Experience Boosts.

3.) Do all of my class missions.

4.) Do all of the planet missions.

5.) Lots and lots of War Zones (good XP here)

6.) Flashpoints here and there.

This is actually something that I've wrestled with as well but for a different reason: boredom with the same areas and quests. The one thing that I really miss about WoW versus SWTOR is that there were so many different places to level in WoW, compared to TOR.

 

For instance, I completed my IA story and got to 50, and I've been working on all of the other classes (sometime multiple versions of the other classes) but I found that as I was back at Hoth and Voss with my SW I was burnt out on those areas (oh yeah, Belsavis too).

 

I understand why they have to have the limited number of areas to level (stories would be difficult to implement on any arbitrary planet), but it doesn't stop some of those really long quest chains from killing your desire to play a character. A planet wide quest chain in Taris was fine, you could blow through there in 3 levels and a couple of hours, but on Voss and Belsavis you'd be there for a couple of days, a few hours at a time and still just 3 levels.

 

So, with that I've decided to try and do a few things differently:

 

1.) Utilize XP Booster Packs when you get to high levels

2.) Do some of the bonus quest series that you might not have done the first time around

3.) Engage in some group content (this is a personal one as I rarely ever group in any MMO).

4.) Utilize rested XP.

 

Still, I wish there was something more that could be done about this, I would really like to see a reduction in the amount of enemies you need to kill for Bonus quests once you've reached level 50 (on any character on your account, once for each faction). I know that I tend to be a completionist about the bonus quests so when you're running through the same murder spree on the same enemies for the 8th time it would be nice if you had a 50% reduction before proceeding to the next stages or something.

 

But whatever, at least there's a story to keep it interesting. More than I got out of other MMOs

I've leveled to 50 with chiefly:

 

Class missions

Planet storyline missions

PvP

Flashpoints sprinkled in

 

This is my preferred path. Done this way, I still hit 50 before Corellia (sometimes on Belsavis). This is with no XP bonuses. Gearing is not a problem as I hit the GTN once in awhile and buy the PvP gear at 20 and 40. Weapons can be upgraded more frequently at the PvP vendor.

 

I find the side quests annoying and unnecessary. However, they do serve an overlooked function. Besides gear, they tend to lead one in the right direction for map exploration. In fact, they often lead right to the doorsteps of the class and planet story missions.

 

My advice is skip alot of the side quests and sub in some flashpoints. If you don't like PvP, go heavier on the flashpoints. I find them enjoyable.

Definately, altenate factions inbetween...

 

Also, if you complete EVERYTHING on a planet... and also kill tons of mobs on every quest, it will allow you to outright skip some planets side quests. So you can complete everyone on planet x and skip y with one toon... then the next time, plan on doing the side quests on planet y and skip x.

 

Do bonus quests on some of the planets...and skip some for other characters. Again, the x/y thing.

 

I'm just starting Balmora with my tropper I stopped over Nar Shaddah and completed the bonus quests and dinged 35. So I'll like skip ALL side quests on Balmora and the next planet after that (can't remember what's after that, Quesh, I think?)

 

In short, there is plenty of content to be able to skip TONS of the side quests. You can't skip all of it, but you can choose which to.

 

Have fun.

 

(8 level 50's is a BIG goal you have there too... careful with that - and the family)

I only did the full missions once and I have five 50's. Only class missions, skip ever single other quest giver. I level with just pvp. I did some space on one toon, but space sucks, completely tidious. Campanion convo's used to give sick xp but they got nerfed. Anyway, grinding quests stinks and you can totally skip them and level just fine.

Spacebar is your friend, after you have done the planet quests a few times you know where they are and how each one unfolds so you can plan accordingly to do them as you move from zone to zone, just spacebar through the convo choices and do them while you are doing your class quest in the same are, I can blow through any of the planets in 1-3 hrs doing all of the quests but the heroics, no xp boosts or legacy purchases, the thing you have to be willing to do is either hit up FP's or the GTN for gear, if you fall behind on gear it slows you down no matter what you are doing.

 

EDIT: and if you are playing a healer or tank, go dps while leveling, your companions are ok dps but having to gear them so they put out as much dps as you could in a dps spec if pointless.

Edited December 5, 2012 by Viridiana
Additional information.

I've been carrying my alts on F2P accounts with my 50 on my main account. Kinda annoying and you better have some kind of aoe taunt because your very underleveled alt will pull alot.

I'd like to add one other thing, from the viewpoint of "keeping it fresh"

 

Try things that make the gameplay more challenging, which game keep things interesting and help you through some stuff you may have seen before. Having unlocked HK-51 on my main, I bought him on my Sniper. I've been leveling as a dps with a dps companion and it's been different and fun from my previous runs.

 

I've even tackled a few Heroics, and without a tank pet to pull aggro, no heal pet to add to the health pool, and no non-droid CCs, it's all about burning down the mobs before you run out of health.

 

planet, class, rest xp, xp boosts... do a bonus series if you need to catch up before the next planet.... should always have orange class/planet. with LFG getting an FP is no problem, just be sure to do the daily. try to hit 47 right when you complete your class quest.

You could PVP for experience. Or, if you really just want to blast through, maybe take a few high level group members with you.

I'm currently simultaniously leveling two characters that are also the same faction, so I'm literally doing the same stuff twice.

 

 

how I avoid that? I basically do what someone else already suggested, I just give it a little twist:

 

- I do my pvp daily on both characters (not every day, just whenever I actually log on the character)

this is usually 2 warzones, but more often than not you win a match so you only do one and your daily is done.

I .always. travel back to the fleet before I log out of the char, so I can hand in said pvp quest and pick up the new one the next time I log in. the exp is not 'much' but it's definitely a nice boost (plus you can get gear for lvl 20 and 40)

- before I start questing on the planet I do 1-2 space missions

- sometimes I don't quest at all and do more pvp or queue up for a flashpoint, depending on my mood and if guildies are around to level with

 

and now to the actual twist:

one character does the main class story + the side missions

one character does the main class story + the planetary story (these start at the spaceport/space station when you first enter. not to be confused with the bonus series that starts when your main storyline is at a certain point)

 

since I'm a subscriber and usually log out on the fleet I can rely on my rest exp so I haven't really had the problem of being 'too low' for a quest, yet. if for whatever reason I notice I'm 'low' in level I check which planetary bonus series is available (I know tatooine is about lvl 28, nar shddaa 30, alderaan about 40)

I find the bonus quest chains rather 'uninteresting', but I guess they do promise a little 'extra story' if you don't feel like doing the same stuff over and over and over again (especially when you don't like warzones or space combat)

So my strategy has been to strictly organise what sidemissions i do with every character.

 

As i love doing some warzones and flashpoints here and there it was/is possible for me to do only:

 

1. Class Missions

2. around 25% of all sidequests, heroics and planetquests for every character of one side.

-if you manage it well you will be able to only do 1/4 of the quests with each char and never have to repeat the sidequests. (in fact i only did repeat sidequests if i realy liked them the first time)

3. I do all flashpoints once with each char

4. I do around 2 warzones for each level

5. If i am too much behind i do some spacemissions (fun and gives loads of xp)

 

What i did as well is, that for my third and fourth character i switched the games language from english to german (my native tongue) so this added some new and interesting element as well.

 

 

All in all i would say that it is not too difficult to have a fun experiance with all 4 characters of one side... The most important thing is though that you should not expect to have a great time with every char if you can not restrict yourself from doing all quests

Just leveled my Vanguard without doing any side quests. Class + PvP + a few space missions is all I did. No XP boosts used for quests, but I did take the XP boost for PvP and Space.