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Please get rid of level scaling.


darksorazz

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Level scaling undermines our entire progress, makes gearing up useless until 75, makes farming all the datacrons useless as the stats don't apply, forces a timesink on players with making content almost impossible to do with how gimped the stats are.

 

I went from level 10 with 4480hp hitting over 150 per hit to level 11 with 2000hp and barely 60 damage per hit.

It turns the game into a chore which is a big reason players are abandoning the game faster than ever.

 

Remove the scaling and you'll see players coming back in droves.

 

Take WoW for example, it's the most successful MMO ever. Never introduced forced level scaling.

 

Players don't like putting in effort, to be made weaker by stupid in game mechanics.

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The level scaling needs to stay in order to make the game playable. We had a time when people were level 60 and were oneshoting world bosses and even soloing or duoing old NiM operations. This game has so little content being added that it really needs level scaling or otherwise the players will not have anything to do!

 

Imagine how easy heroics would be, the old story stuff like Star Fortress or the KOTFE and KOTET (which is level 60 content) at level 75. Everything would become irrelevant. The achievements would become pointless (like doing KOTFE at Master level would be no problem since its level 60 and you would be level 75). So the game cannot go without this.

 

You are wrong when saying WoW does not have this. I am not a WoW player, but we did start playing WoW when Legion came out and Swtor was in maintanance mode, but we have witnessed level sync even there. They have started implementing it into new content.

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Completely disagree. Level scaling is one of the best things that happened to the game because of the way it is set up. Before we had level scaling and Daily Activities all but the current max level expansion planets had become absolute wastelands with no other players around, because there was nothing of value that could be done there. Just like it is with other games that don't have level scaling.

 

And I find your claim that level scaling is the singular reason that people abandoned the game and that WoW is successful in comparison highly suspect. On the list of why WoW or other games are more popular than SWTOR, level scaling is all the way down at the bottom.

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My biggest issue with level scaling is how it homogenized all the old fps, all the rewards.

 

I mean any details and features of the loot tables were completely gutted and in their place was placed a predictable patterned loot table of non-descript, non-specialized loot items!

 

All the work that someone did, creating specialized items for each FP was summarily gutted and removed from the game.

 

The FPs once were fun to run just for rare and semi-rare weapons and armor sets, now it's just a bunch of cookie cutter items that are determined as rewards according to the level of the players in the FP.

 

I view this as neglectful, tbh. They literally did hundreds of hours of work to dismantle hundreds of hours of work, only to make the game less colorful, less enjoyable.

 

During this time they also removed many specialized vendors that sold low level orange moddable items, too, like some blasters that only could be bought on DK, or armor sets that were lvl 20, 40 that had unique appearances, why remove so many things that added flavor to the zone? :confused:

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All the work that someone did, creating specialized items for each FP was summarily gutted and removed from the game.

 

The FPs once were fun to run just for rare and semi-rare weapons and armor sets, now it's just a bunch of cookie cutter items that are determined as rewards according to the level of the players in the FP.

 

Yes I agree on this, I remember the times when I ran a specific flashpoint just to get that double bladed saber that was dropping there. The Devs completely removed all this and its sad that it went this way. I think the unique stuff should have stayed in some form. Now you get just all kinds of gear from everywhere that you just keep on throwing away.

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Yes I agree on this, I remember the times when I ran a specific flashpoint just to get that double bladed saber that was dropping there. The Devs completely removed all this and its sad that it went this way. I think the unique stuff should have stayed in some form. Now you get just all kinds of gear from everywhere that you just keep on throwing away.

 

I'd love to hear the take of past devs who created much of SWTOR before and for launch. I'd love to know their thoughts on how production went for this game, and what their thoughts are on how it has turned out... Specifically does it bother them that so much of the game has been gutted and re-worked, parts that they themselves made? I don't work in this field, or know anyone that does but, do devs tend to detach themselves from their work after they make it and leave a project or do they tend to follow and keep up with what direction their past projects take?

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Hard no. I played the game back when there was no scaling, and it greatly limited your ability to play at your own pace. The moment you got over the max level for the planet, all of the content for that planet became redundant. There was little incentive to revisit the planet or go through all the quests or play through bonus arcs, etc. You would be able to one-kill everything. I consider myself a casual player, but that was way too boring even for me.

 

Yeah, I wish I could one-kill a world boss now, but it's a small price to pay for keeping the earlier planets relevant. Especially if you are like me and you consider most late-game content significantly worse than early game. I would rather be running Black Talon or farming heroics on Hoth or exploring Voss, than doing dailies on Iokath.

 

It's not perfect; I would echo the sentiment that a lot of unique rewards got lost, sadly. And KOTFEET is all over the place; its Master difficulty is now sometimes ridiculously difficult and not because of players' skill level, just because of bugs (walker sections, I am looking at you); the chapters give significantly bigger rewards between lvls 61-66 I think, but not after 66, because reasons™, etc.

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the chapters give significantly bigger rewards between lvls 61-66 I think, but not after 66, because reasons™, etc.

That one's marginally explicable, even if the explanation is mostly noise. You have it sort of backwards, though. The XP rewards at 66+ in KotFE are reduced (rather than the 61-65 rewards being bigger(1)) and the notional reason is to slow progress in that content since all of KotFE/ET is synced to level 70 (and in 4.X and 5.X that content wasn't synced at all).

 

As I said, it's mostly noise, but there *is* a reason for it.

 

(1) I agree that it's a thin distinction, but in 4.X (when max level was 65), the XP per mission was X amount (depending on level), and they left that amount for those levels and put smaller XP amounts for 66-70 in KotFE to make it slightly harder to reach the beginning of KotET already at level 70. The original design was that if you began KotFE *exactly* at the beginning of level 60 and played *just* KotFE, you'd level up to 61 shortly before you go into the Skytrooper factory in Chapter III (where there's a class-trainer holoterminal), and you'd reach level 65 no later than the end of Chapter IX on Odessen.

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One of the biggest gripes WOW has in BFA is not only the level scaling that it most certainly DOES have, along with the addition of Item Level scaling as well. When you get better gear, their AI already on your level, is leveled up again to your gear item level as well. So players are dealing with both level scaling and Item level scaling. Edited by Lord_Malganus
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I'd love to hear the take of past devs who created much of SWTOR before and for launch. I'd love to know their thoughts on how production went for this game, and what their thoughts are on how it has turned out... Specifically does it bother them that so much of the game has been gutted and re-worked, parts that they themselves made? I don't work in this field, or know anyone that does but, do devs tend to detach themselves from their work after they make it and leave a project or do they tend to follow and keep up with what direction their past projects take?

I can't comment on *game* developers, but my experience is that people who've left are often interested to hear about the progress of the project in one way or another if you run into them afterwards. Of course most of the companies I've left myself over the years have since folded (in one memorable case, I "left" because they folded the company), so following the old projects is a bit difficult.

 

That said, they are often more interested in the *human* aspects than the software itself, of the "Is so-and-so still there?" type of thing.

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The level scaling in SWTOR is fail because on lower level content, the AI is on your level, but none of the drops or rewards are. Current Black hole daily's being a good example.

 

This is not entirely correct. Quest rewards are fixed, but drops from enemies are tied to your character level as part of the level scaling. So the loot table of the enemies that are lower level will be partly shifted up to your character level while your character level is shifted down to the planet level. This is why you can for example do the Heroic on Tython with a level 75 character and the droids will drop lvl 75 gear.

Edited by Phazonfreak
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Prior to level scaling you could have instances of a level 60 (I think that was the max level then) running certain FP's solo (without the need even for a companion) and one shot killing all mobs. The lower level planets and content were farmed by over powered uber gods. In reality this made no sense - they were not supposed to be that powerful.

 

Level scaling works - it allows higher level characters to take part in lower level content without having too easy a job at it. It also means that guilds that want to RP (like a Jedi academy) can do so without their higher level members getting overly bored because everything on the planet dies when they sneeze on them.

 

Without the level boost it is quite easy to hit level 70+ during your class quest progress (subscriber and enhanced xp legacy perks). This makes the "grind" to 75 less of an actual grind as it is quite natural and fluid.

 

Once you hit 75 then a different sort of gear grind starts and as it has tons of RNG stacked on it then that (if anything) needs to be looked at first. Level the level scaling as is.

Edited by Gericke
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Well we all know that level sync came with 4.0, the expansion that focused wholly on story and streamlining the rest of the game. It was the first time all the ops and fps were raised to max level because there were no new ones.

 

It was BioWare's inability to bring out new content at a decent pace that brought us level sync and re-using old content ad infinitum. Not to say that it's without merit but the reasons are bleak.

 

Now one thing that adds to it all...the number of planets and the limited level range they have. I believe that if they'd released with fewer planets with bigger level ranges a lot of these things could've been avoided and people wouldn't be rushing through planets as much as they do now.

 

And another thing that complicated matters is that they insist on raising the level cap even though it brings mostly negatives for the game. Leveling is not fun anymore because the level range has increased but not the skill range (ok one or two skills but that's it for 25 extra levels). So it cheapens the leveling experience, drags it out AND it makes life more difficult for BioWare. Think about it...the last 3 expansions they've had to up the ops and fp's and that could've been avoided. This time they set most of it at 70 still but that also created bad side effects. I would've much preferred if they'd stayed with level 50. Gear rating's what it's all about after all. You get the vast majority of your stats from gear, so why not use that and set minimum gear requirements and actually have brackets of group content instead of throwing it all on one heap.

 

Then you only need bolster for new content if people are undergeared instead of retroactively applying level sync to it. And sure, I get that they want people to sub at least from time to time and get the latest expansion but all you have to do is a quest or quest chain for every new expansion that unlocks the newest tiers of gear and you're done with it.

 

All in all when it comes to level sync and level cap raises the reasons why are poor for a large part and they could've done better. That's hindsight but what's it going to be next year? Level 80 and no new skills? *** does that mean? And for level sync, are they going to keep older content at 70 and 75 and introduce new level 80 content so you have 3 different ways of gearing?

 

I don't mind level sync on the vanilla story but the level cap raises have caused some odd issues in having to level sync the new areas and particularly group content. They should've never gone this way because in the end it's just 25 more levels for the sake of levels and nothing more.

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I'm fine with the level scaling on planets and even upscaling or downscaling in ops and FP (at least how it was in 5.x). I am not ok with one thing:

 

The current setup of endgame. Its, frankly, ridiculous. Either ops and fp are all endgame content, and thus should be level 75, or they aren't endgame content, should be whatever their level was on release, and thus should not drop endgame gear.

 

BW took the lazy, incompetent, or whatever other adjective you wish to insert here way out when they chose to simply keep all 5.x and prior content at level 70, release new content at 75, and then call level 70 content endgame material. I find it flabbergasting that this was considered a good idea.

 

Annoying as FF14s downgrading system is in FP and raids, at least it makes sense conceptually.

 

TLDR: If BW can't (due to inability or low resources or whatever else) make a level 75 endgame, they never should have raised the level cap in the first place.

Edited by KendraP
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The level scaling in SWTOR is fail because on lower level content, the AI is on your level, but none of the drops or rewards are. Current Black hole daily's being a good example.

 

Not true.

 

As Phazon said, if you complete the heroic on Tython at 75, you'll get the reward and credits commensurate for being 75, not the planetary level. The exact same can be said about miscellaneous drops off trash mobs.

What does not scale are story quest rewards.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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Hard no. I played the game back when there was no scaling, and it greatly limited your ability to play at your own pace. The moment you got over the max level for the planet, all of the content for that planet became redundant.

 

An excellent point. Planetary sync needs to stay.

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The biggest issue I have with level scaling is how instances for class stories work.

 

Instead of being shifted to match YOUR level and intended difficulty, they are x level for the planet, and you are shifted down, making all content inside that instance trivial, and final bosses die 123.

 

They need to scale the instances up to your level.

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The solution is right there in front of you.

 

The best way to handle this is ESO style.

 

Make EVERYTHING level 75, scale CHARACTERS to 75 as they level up.

 

Stop increasing max level with "expansions".

 

Introduce secondary system for experience points, for minimal amounts of power increases and customization past 75th level.

 

There, all the problems with scaling fixed, all the complications with fixing scaling avoided.

 

Agreeing with Kendra here on a point. The fact that raiding isn't at level 75 is an absolute JOKE. It's lead to a meta that games the system using gear that under uses mastery/power (which gets capped in 70th level content) in favor of % based stats with no cap. It makes the raids too easy, and shows how underdeveloped endgame actually is.

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The solution is right there in front of you.

 

The best way to handle this is ESO style.

 

Make EVERYTHING level 75, scale CHARACTERS to 75 as they level up.

 

Stop increasing max level with "expansions".

 

Introduce secondary system for experience points, for minimal amounts of power increases and customization past 75th level.

 

There, all the problems with scaling fixed, all the complications with fixing scaling avoided.

 

Agreeing with Kendra here on a point. The fact that raiding isn't at level 75 is an absolute JOKE. It's lead to a meta that games the system using gear that under uses mastery/power (which gets capped in 70th level content) in favor of % based stats with no cap. It makes the raids too easy, and shows how underdeveloped endgame actually is.

 

What you are suggesting is called bolster, currently an in-game feature. Not sure if you're aware, but bolster is horribly hit or miss depending on where or what you're doing.

 

We have a system in place, it works. The last thing I'd want to rely on is their crappy bolster system to replace planet sync.

 

No thank you.

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What you are suggesting is called bolster, currently an in-game feature. Not sure if you're aware, but bolster is horribly hit or miss depending on where or what you're doing.

 

We have a system in place, it works. The last thing I'd want to rely on is their crappy bolster system to replace planet sync.

 

No thank you.

 

Which is why I didn't ask for bolster.

 

ESO handles it pretty easily. Lower level characters don't get as many raw stats as max level characters. Instead, they just get more hit points. There's no schenanigans with it, no rigging the system. At most, the lower level characters get a stat that allows some padding around their mistakes.

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Which is why I didn't ask for bolster.

 

ESO handles it pretty easily. Lower level characters don't get as many raw stats as max level characters. Instead, they just get more hit points. There's no schenanigans with it, no rigging the system. At most, the lower level characters get a stat that allows some padding around their mistakes.

 

The thing about higher-level characters, not only do they have more hit points, they have more abilities, like phase walk, that lower level toons don't.

 

If all mobs are 75, I can just see a level 3 player on Tython in the Gnarls fighting level 75 fleshraiders, but unlike a higher-level toon, would be fighting with no stun, interrupt, heal, etc., just extra hit points.

 

That level 3, even with tens of thousands of extra hit points, would MELT in such a fight. No stat increases on gear (bolster, hello), nothing of the sort, just extra hp.

 

Just dumping hit points on lowbies won't cut it. To successfully defeat a level 75, you must also ask the programmers to correctly and consistently add abilities to that level 3 lowbie to make that fight winnable.

 

It took the devs three freaking times to get the emperor slot machine halfway functioning. Good luck asking them to program a scatter-shot process to get lowbies functional against high-level mobs.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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As someone that has played this game since launch, I can say only for myself, that Level Sync was the best thing introduced.

 

There was time when I would just run circles around fleet waiting to get 1 of the 5 only level 55 flashpoints available (the highest level at that time).

 

When level sync came out, I was able to do heroics for planets I would have never visited again and all the flashpoints became relevant again, as did older operations.

 

The only negative I found for level sync is the storyline bosses being way to easy, since most to the final fights take you back to starter planets. I miss when those fights were tough.

 

The only thing I could see better is just to not have levels at all and then everything was equal levels and only gear and abilities mattered. I could dig that.

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The thing about higher-level characters, not only do they have more hit points, they have more abilities, like phase walk, that lower level toons don't.

 

If all mobs are 75, I can just see a level 3 player on Tython in the Gnarls fighting level 75 fleshraiders, but unlike a higher-level toon, would be fighting with no stun, interrupt, heal, etc., just extra hit points.

 

That level 3, even with tens of thousands of extra hit points, would MELT in such a fight. No stat increases on gear (bolster, hello), nothing of the sort, just extra hp.

 

Just dumping hit points on lowbies won't cut it. To successfully defeat a level 75, you must also ask the programmers to correctly and consistently add abilities to that level 3 lowbie to make that fight winnable.

 

It took the devs three freaking times to get the emperor slot machine halfway functioning. Good luck asking them to program a scatter-shot process to get lowbies functional against high-level mobs.

 

I clearly stated they "don't get as many" raw stats, not that they didn't get anything aside from more HP.

 

Zero agreement with the OP. Zero.

Planet sync is an excellent and welcome change to the game.

 

It's very clear that you don't think there's a problem, and you just want to derail any solutions. You're not here to be constructive, you're here to intentionally misunderstand, and react to those "misunderstandings."

 

Feel free to put me on ignore. Permanently.

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All base stats are boosted on lowbies in eso, and it requires keeping up with gear as you level to keep them that way, and eventually push beyond them. It's incredibly forgiving at low levels and keeps gearing along the way relevant.

 

There are not many things that I would like to see copied from eso to swtor, but their scaling system is absolutely one of the exceptions, it's as close to perfect as I could imagine a scaling system being.

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