Since it came up in this thread, it made me wonder...why are the Hutta and Ord Mantell henchmen bounty contracts level gated? They can be run by low level characters but once you hit a certain level you can no longer access those dailies.

 

The strange part is that kingpin weeklies on Hutta and Ord Mantell do not have the same level gating, and thankfully neither do the henchmen dailies on other planets. A level 70 character can still run the Tatooine henchmen dailies for instance, despite that being a level 25-28 planet.

 

Is there any purpose for those starter planet dailies having level gating?

 

And if not, can we have that changed with a future update?

Edited January 14, 2018 by Aeneas_Falco

When the bounty system was first put in, even the henchmen bounty targets were a tough kill. So I imagine the lower planets like Hutta and Ord Mantell were gated to keep higher level players from farming them. Now even the kingpins are stupid easy so it doesn't really matter what planet you go to if you want to farm some bounty certificates.

I was there when as soon as they got attacked, the henchmen's helpers went so many levels up ... Being hit by a level 50 henchmal while being at level 20 was not funny. Not at all.

Even worse when there was a great level disparity within a group of let's say 2 people. One char being at level 40, one at 20 ... Not funny, either.

Before level sync, the adds that appeared when shady characters attacked matched the level of the character who interacted with the shady character. The level 27 cap was put in place to try to help minimize the number of bounties being run that would result in the summoning of NPCs capable of one-shotting brand new players on starter planets. As it was, I still saw plenty of low level characters killed simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's also very likely it was done to prevent overcrowding. With level sync in place the level of the adds is also capped so they are less of a threat to low level characters, but at the same time it still helps prevent overcrowding.

Thanks for the responses. From the sound of it the gating did make sense at the time it was implemented.

 

Although I did some of the bounty contracts back then, I did them with a max level character. It was only recently that I ran the henchmen contracts on Ord Mantell and Hutta. Because I had run the henchmen dailies at max level I didn't recall them being difficult, though I can see how they might have been in retrospect. Level sync and 4.0 altered the difficulty of much of the vanilla content. (More accurately, it completely wiped it out) I recall Kingpin contracts being a bit of challenge even for max level characters and people often grouping for them.

 

Since the changes with 4.0 no longer make level gating necessary I hope Bioware considers opening up these quests for characters of any level.

You're right. The henchmen weren't that difficult for a "seasoned" player. But for someone who didn't really know their class very well, they could be. I remember going to Ord Mantell and Hutta and seeing level 40's to 50's fail on the henchmen or Kingpins and the mobs not despawn when they died. This usually happened in high traffic areas. So if you were on a level 1-10 character, and a level 40-50 mob was nearby, your aggro radius was huge and you would get one shot killed and never even see it coming.

 

Even with level sync, if you go there on a max character, and spawn level 10 or 12 strong / elite / champion mobs, then somehow they managed to defeat you, or if your game crashed, how do you think a level 2-8 newbie would hold out against them if they have no companion and only 3 crap abilities? So yeah, it should still remain the way it is.

 

Even with level sync, if you go there on a max character, and spawn level 10 or 12 strong / elite / champion mobs, then somehow they managed to defeat you, or if your game crashed, how do you think a level 2-8 newbie would hold out against them if they have no companion and only 3 crap abilities? So yeah, it should still remain the way it is.

 

I'm not sure I buy into that argument for level gating. Maybe at some point prior to 4.0 it was needed but certainly not now.

 

Neither Coruscant or Dromund Kaas have level gated bounty targets and it does not cause issues with mobs spawned by max level characters ganking lowbies, so it shouldn't be any more of a problem on Ord Mantell or Hutta. An easy solution if that was a potential problem would be to have the bounty targets only aggro once they take damage.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Aeneas_Falco

I'm not sure I buy into that argument for level gating. Maybe at some point prior to 4.0 it was needed but certainly not now.

 

Neither Coruscant or Dromund Kaas have level gated bounty targets and it does not cause issues with mobs spawned by max level characters ganking lowbies, so it shouldn't be any more of a problem on Ord Mantell or Hutta. An easy solution if that was a potential problem would be to have the bounty targets only aggro once they take damage.

 

To be honest, I haven't participated in Bounty Week since it's 2nd go round. I got all of the achievements and max rep because I did them all with multiple characters. And they already have implemented their "easy" solution by gating those planets. Also Dromund Kaas and Coruscant are not starter planets.