I started as f2p loved the story and subbed \, this is my first mmo but I played allot of sp rpgs as for mp mostly played RTS and fps.

 

Now my problem is that the xp needed to level and continue the story is just insane, all I want is to see how my story end's, so far I have leveled with fp and pvp and some of side missions that make sense, problem started around level 30 or so when I got tired of kill 10 whatever and push 3 buttons and skipped more stuff as such did more pvp and fp to compensate.

 

Now I'm level 41 after hoth with a lot of pvp and doing the Alderran bonus series, but the thought of grinding my way up to 50 well it feels like work, hell most of the time I'm doing so much side stuff I can't even remember wth I was supposed to do.

 

I mean compare this to DAO a long game but it did not feel like you had to grind and honestly the story had agency and pacing plus allot more comp dialogue I mean look at Alistair, I don't know it just feels strange somehow after playing the ME series and the Dragon age series.

 

Anyway any advice on how to finish my story in a resonable amount of time? Should I youtube the ending and be done with it?

I started as f2p loved the story and subbed \, this is my first mmo but I played allot of sp rpgs as for mp mostly played RTS and fps.

 

How can you claim you "loved the story" and just a few days of game time later you've bogged down to stand still because you don't want to do any side quests?

MMO's aren't like shooters. They're practically NOTHING like shooters, in fact.

Until you embrace that and change your game, there's not much I can do to help you.

The side quest cut scenes are even worth watching. Many of them are really good mini-stories all on their own. And if you make it a point to complete the bonus quest, those are usually worth at least 30% of the actual quest's xp reward.

Are you playing rested? No I don't mean if you've had a nap. If you log out in a cantina, on fleet, or on your ship, you get double xp from every kill.

How can you claim you "loved the story" and just a few days of game time later you've bogged down to stand still because you don't want to do any side quests?

MMO's aren't like shooters. They're practically NOTHING like shooters, in fact.

Until you embrace that and change your game, there's not much I can do to help you.

The side quest cut scenes are even worth watching. Many of them are really good mini-stories all on their own. And if you make it a point to complete the bonus quest, those are usually worth at least 30% of the actual quest's xp reward.

Are you playing rested? No I don't mean if you've had a nap. If you log out in a cantina, on fleet, or on your ship, you get double xp from every kill.

 

 

 

First I never skip any cutscenes even If i've seen them many times, secondly the first part of the game I had no problem with, do few hours of side quests a little pvp get more story, now it's do 7 8 hours of pointless grind and get 3 lines of story, I'm used to finishing sp story focused rpgs in like 3 4 days max, I've been playing this for about 2 weeks and something and no end in sight, I don't even remember some of the characters from the begining of the game.

 

Compare this to mass effect 2 that I played like 6 times and even KOTOR 1 and 2 that I played many times over and I can jump in right now and it doesn't feel like grinding. There is such a thing a too much padding.

 

And on the subject of side quests, in most single player story focused Rpgs the main story is the focus of the game, sure you can get sidetracked like in dao but not enough to actually forget wth are you suppose to do and lose any agency and pacing the story had.

 

 

They should add bigger xp boost on the cartel market like 100 percent or more for people who wanna see the story and don't want all the pointless padding and kill 20 whatever.

If you are even remotely considering "youtubing your storyline ending" you have already lost interest in playing your character. The only advice along that line i can give is, yeah, go ahead and youtube it.

 

But, if you want to go from 40-50 in about 6 days. this is what you do. you do planet quests, your class quest line, and space missions. if you aren't getting 1-2 levels per day then you are skipping way too much content. I don't even try to level and i get 3 levels a day easy. and i'm talking 30-50. Space Missions, i'm going to just go ahead and assume you have not done any. bad news...you are passing up 70,000+ xp in about 25 minutes time. add that up per day and you've bypassed about...oh...10 levels. you should be 50 right now. /smack.

are you still f2p?

 

i run into the same issues as you with every new toon i create

personally, i hate planet questing- even on my first toon but, curiously, this is the easiest/most efficient way to level

 

skipping planets/quests for whatever reason will eventually paint you in a corner where you cant advance class story quests b/c of level disparity and, thus, difficulty

 

i am not up to speed on the limits of f2p but i'm guessing you will have to bite the bullet and just focus on a planet and do as many quests as you can to "catch up" (usually doing an entire planet will allow you to get away with just the class quest on the "next" planet in the chain)

 

just noticed in op that player has subbed

-- personally, i level all my alts exclusively pvp wz's and did the class story to unlock the buffs

i will trot down to my ship to do space missions when the mood strikes and i avoid pugging fp's at all costs

Edited December 28, 2012 by Daxy

I've hear quite a few people who feel 30 - 40 feels "grindy".

Past that point it does get better. And at 47 you can start doing dailies which give AWESOME xp.

So I skip from mid Voss all the way to Illum, and return to Voss once I'm 50 and started building up my gear.

Class quests for lvl 47 are so much easier in Tionese/Columi gear.

yep I only did space missions in the beginning and also all the planet side quests, I was level 24 or 26 or so when I arrived on Nar Shada, but then went lax on space missions, and after seeing the great rewards of pvp and the little time you have to spend on it compared to say a flashpoint I started to mostly pvp and do the sidequests that interested me.

 

at Taris I began skipping allot of content and well I had to do more pvp and fp to catch up.

 

I'm gonna take your advice and do space missions when I roll an alt .

Edited December 28, 2012 by Eleven_eleven

XP boosters to help?

The MMO's I've played have all been rewarding if you try to immerse yourself in the world, rather than approach it like a console video game.

 

Imagine you are on that world and want to help (or influence) the lives of all those people. When someone tells you they need you to help them with something, go out and help them with it. Yes, the quest is technically to kill 20 so and so's, but the more you can think of it like you're out there making a difference, the less you'll get bored with it.

 

There's a little suspension of disbelief required. Of course, the guys you kill are going to just respawn in 2 minutes and it'll be like you were never there. The best thing is to try not to think of that.

 

If you actually do all the quests on a planet, you're not going to be seeing the same area twice and it should all feel relatively new. If all you see is humanoid shaped pixels, then the game is going to feel extremely grindy. That's how all MMO's are.

 

I find Act 3 to go very fast, but I really enjoy the main planet story lines of Belsavis, Voss, and Corellia. There's enough xp from questing on 2 of those worlds to get you to 50, so you actually can't do all the content there if you want to hit 50 just as you're finishing your class story.

 

Another thing that I think alot of people aren't aware of is that there are 3 types of quests on a planet. 1 is your class chain, which is generally 4-5 quests in series. Another that most people are aware of is stand alone quests that you pick up from people on the planet. The final type is the main planet quest chain, which usually starts with a person at the space dock. Most people don't realize that is actually the start of a continuous chain because the chain blends in with all the single serving quests as you move through the planet. If you try to immerse yourself in the story a little more, you can track the chain and keep up with your larger overall influence on the planet as you move from area to area.

there is pretty much next to zero grinding required to level up in this game, if you think this game is bad then maybe mmo's are not for you, as pretty much every mmo requires you to do quests/missions and lots of them to reach max level. In SWTOR if you skip all the side quests on a planet and only do your class story missions you won't level up enough to do the next planet.

 

My advice is simply do everything on your first play through, then when you have a second character going through if you have a high enough level then you possibly can skip through content, for example when I did Tatooine I ended up at lvl32 which pretty much let me just do my class story missions and skip the next planet entirely.

if you think this game is bad then maybe mmo's are not for you

^ This. OP keeps comparing the MMO experience with the SP RPG experience of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. While similar in story telling methods, the gameplay is entirely different. MMOs traditionally make their money from subscriptions, and thus rely on expansive content to keep players playing longer than 3-6 days. If that's all you're looking for, I'd highly suggest cancelling your sub and going back to single player roleplaying games.

 

As for the leveling concerns, level 41 while on or at the end of Hoth is pretty much "on level". If you're done with Hoth, you really don't have much left to go for your story, and there's absolutely no requirement you be 50 when you finish. I've known many players who finish up in their early to mid 40s by skipping side mission content and getting help from guildies to beat particularly tough bosses. Level 50 just opens up the "end game" content of raiding and serious pvp.

i leveld my first char in 10 days play time second char i leveld with a friend in 7 days play time and my 3th i did in 6,5 day play time. I know its gets broing at some point but i did some pvp after i ended a planet or when i was sick of leveling. If you skip every side quest on the planets you will miss out some xp and for those amounts of xp you need to allot of pvp or fp's.

 

What i did (so my advice) turn on some music you like and start doing planet quests dont watch you xp barr to much and dont think about how long it will take and you will be lvl 50 before you know it

Hoth kind of deflates the game IMO. It's just soooo.... white..... and.......boring

 

You still have Belsavis, Voss, & Corelia (where you class story ends) - with a little on Ilum after.

 

What you've got to do is move on to Belsavis. The difficulty begins to ratchet up there, and you should level pretty fast. Even if you just do a few missions here and there, you should gain at least a level just from class missions, and you can complete the class story before hitting 50 ~ it will just make your final class mission more difficult. If you hit Ilum with a level 48, you'll hit 50 before you play through all the content there. Don't worry about skipping planet story missions, if you stick with the game, you'll see those on successive playthroughs ~ and they only differ slightly by dialog according to class.

Round about Hoth is where I tend to glaze over too, even though I also love the story. Pushing from 40-50 seems to grind for me as well; but once the story is over you start to miss it (class missions change, Dalies and Warzones don't).

 

I usually start up another character and play that for a while then come back.

unfortunately there is no way around it. As someone mentioned above, you are probably still on Hoth, once you get to Belsavis (levels 41-44) and Voss (lever 44-47) things get really interesting.

I get that they wanted to make Hoth feel huge and desolate. But Hoth is a real buzz kill, and its so bright I change my monitor settings when I'm questing there. It's got cool stories in the missions, and the map is very well crafted, and quite amazing in it's complexity. But it's just... white. I don't know what they could have done different, or how they could actually change it. But it makes the planet feel more flat than it really is. They had to do the same thing with Tatooine, but it doesn't feel nearly as grinding as Hoth. And I'm pretty sure that they're actually about the same size. Edited December 31, 2012 by Cleet_Xia

I usually start up another character and play that for a while then come back.

This is superb advice... at about Hoth point is the same time you can easily tolerate replaying Taris and Tatooine. By the time you're halfway through with Taris, Hoth becomes a blessing again.

 

On the note of Tatooine and Hoth, I think the biggest difference in pacing is the number of zones and amount traveled in each one. Tat is big and sand colored, true... but your questing starts as soon as you land in a city and the spacing/pacing is pretty solid until you get to the Dune Sea, the last actual "zone" you have to play through. With Hoth, there's just too much long distance traveling between missions, and just when it feels like it *should* be done, there's another frakkin zone you have to head to.

 

Belsavis suffers from this really bad, but the close spacing of missions and the variance in enemies and scenery make it much more tolerable until the end. 2/3 of the way through Belsavis things will start to feel real "grindy" again as you find yourself thinking "FFS, more <spoiler> enemies in another ancient <spoiler>, just let me off this rock already!"

In general, if you're skipping the planet quests entirely, you are going to have to make up for them somewhere. I don't know if you've actually had to resort to "grinding," but if you are, you're doing so without being forced to. There's no traditional "grinding" required in this game. Just do the quests. They are normally in the same area as your class quests and completing them all together is the fastest way to consistently level.