Originally posted by Axxar

My Jugg is 29 and my Merc is 30, both having reached Alderaan by now. I can tell the difficulty has increased as I finish fights with less health than previously, and I know that if I was just mashing buttons rather than being very deliberate about ability and enemy priorities there would have been situations in which I would have died.

The difficulty of the game seems to start very low and very slooowly ramp up.

YEa, Leave 30 seems to be the game pusher when it comes to dificulty, Also on alderaan whit my shadow and also seeing that I end up whit more downtime for healing/rest then I used to have. 

Dint keep me from beating a champion lvl 30 boss (egual level) but I needed to spread the fight using all my ability's and heal myself using my biochem medpack 3 times.  I hate those sorcerers sith tho.. they tend to outdamage my Tank ability and heals fairly easy.

I agree with my little pony friend, The game is more challenging then any other recently released PvE based MMO.  On top of that there is more grouping PvE content while leveling then in any other AAA MMO released since DAoC.

Have to disagre OP. It's easy, easy, easy, tricky elite/champion, easy, easy, easy. repeat.

The thing is the tricky elite/champion you just res and go again with your 'A game'. Not that challenging really. The other thing is because the (predominant) trash is easy the main reason you fail when the odd tricky encounter comes along is you are still stuck in trash mob mode. Nothing like a medical drone to wake you from tat though!

Originally posted by DarkPony

One of my biggest fears before I got to play SWTOR (and I patiently waited with that until the pre-launch) was whether it would be too easy and not challenging enough and maybe catering for a crowd with less experience in playing mmorpgs.

This was also based on beta impressions from players who complained that the difficulty was turned down as well as the experiences from players at demo's (who played with toned down difficulty settings). Of course most of that was based on weekenders and the starter planet content should naturally be more forgiving than the stuff you'll be doing later on.

Now, at level 33 and playing the content intended for my level, I can confidently say that there is plenty of aspects in which the game is far, far from "easy mode"; I actually just died three times trying to defeat a key npc of my level in my class quest and eventually had to give up and postpone it (I really prefer having no outside help on those).

 

- Class storylines have key npc's to defeat which can be almost TOO hard for players of the same level. Doable but you need to have everything sorted.

- Some non-heroic quests idem dito.

- Instances as well as heroic quests aren't easy at all after the first one or two: expect to wipe if someone makes an obvious mistake or if your party isn't cooperating well. Two manning + 2 companions is only viable in the first few instances as far as I can tell. (Unless you out-leveled them, of course).

- I've seen multiple huge world bosses which require raids to defeat. (Touch the skull in the Dune Sea and see what happens *chuckles*).

- Each class has a very wide range of skills to its disposal; becoming a master at using them effectively is a challenge on its own accord, especially in pvp.

- Picking the right companion to use, using the right skills and stances and kitting it out properly is another required aspect for much solo content.

- Repair bills get pretty damn expensive. Yesterday I paid 7k to repair my gear, my total bankroll at the time was 100k; the better your gear, the higher the bill.

- The normal solo quest trash mobs aren't so hard, because you'll be pretty much fighting them in groups of 2 to 4 all the time yet there are plenty of elites to fight pretty much everywhere (also outside of elite areas) and those can be a lot harder. Normally I'm ok with soloing a single elite of my level but add another one and I am in trouble.

- Even the blasted space on rails game gets increasingly harder: right now there are a few missions which I simply can't complete due to my ship's upgrades not being up to par.

 

And I haven't even done hard mode flaspoints & operations yet ...

The above is from my personal experience with a 33 operative. Other classes might have an easier time but  the game really urges me to get the most out of my (and my companion's) skills, gear, buffs and tactics. The game has a habbit of kicking you straight in the groin as soon as you get overly confident. Personally I like it that way and I am relieved it isn't so "easy mode" as I feared and I hope Bioware won't cave in to complaints about the difficulty.

Anyone else similar experiences?

 

 

My friend is complaining its way to easy. Though he is only level 25 the last I talked to him he is telling me he is soloing Heroic 4 quests (im assuming thats harder quests that want 4 people?) as a pure sith inquisitor healer. I dont know how true it is or if he just wants me to think he is a badass but if it is true I can hardly see the game being "hard".

Again, not my personal experience though since I never played past the starter worlds in the "everyone gets in" weekend. I also understand a good MMO tends to get harder the higher level you get. Only makes sense imo.

Originally posted by xenogias

My friend is complaining its way to easy. Though he is only level 25 the last I talked to him he is telling me he is soloing Heroic 4 quests (im assuming thats harder quests that want 4 people?) as a pure sith inquisitor healer. I dont know how true it is or if he just wants me to think he is a badass but if it is true I can hardly see the game being "hard".

Again, not my personal experience though since I never played past the starter worlds in the "everyone gets in" weekend. I also understand a good MMO tends to get harder the higher level you get. Only makes sense imo.

Your friend is lying. There are single mobs in the game world that give me a run for my money. Like a mob just before I quit for the patch - a single robot mob at the exit to a quest area (Taris - had to help a bunch of people through a crashed space craft). I was healing like mad trying to keep my companion up while throwing in damage in between heals. The companion finally dropped and I had to run for cover to be able to get back enough energy to stop myself from dying, while avoiding incoming shots as I was very low health. Finally managed to get the final shot in and I was on about 5% health remaining.

And that's just a mob out in the gameworld. Heroic 4's are full of those sorts of things.

Probably some of the hardest mobs I've faced much along the lines of Rifts elites. Some of those things will nuke levels 5 to 10 levels above them and I've seen level 50's die to 25 and 30 elites in Rift also.

I think SW: TOR took somewhat of the same path with their difficulty. Having to face multiple mobs in most every situation is a good change. Usually its pull that mob, murder him while his homie sits back and picks his toe boogers. Though with the mix and design of some of the classes. You get mobs that dropline from the rafters and jetpack in. Guys that come out from behind barrirers or call in droid assistance. Battles are varried and can be quite unsuspecting if you don't take time to read some titles.

I find it good, nothing like slaughtering through a region on your way to an important meeting with the Sith Overlord in Taris to suddenly walk into some Gold Goon with a bunch of silver packing Sith Slayers out to gank. Every fight is not a guarunteed win if you aren't sure what your facing.

Flashpoints and Heroics are the same. Just got done trying to finish Mandalorian Raiders with 2 others, we faced off against the 2 Jedi and Smugglers at the end dieing miserably while only dropping one of them. Note we were a good 4  levels above the level 25 mobs. The four of the Mandy's laid waste to us.

We went back got another Sith Sorcerer and took it to them and still had a good challenge in the fight. We sadly could not kill the last boss. We tried to beat the server out going into the fight with 5 minutes before downtime. We got him to around 25% helath before the pussy jetpacked off to safety burning out the last minute out server time....

BAH!

I realy like that heroic and class quests are very hard.

I can understand that some people need to be a few levels higher to complete those quests or start whining they are to hard.

I do mostly pvp and i love it.

Got a few alts and when i queue up for a Warzone and meet players many many levels higher then me i always try to beat them.

Sometimes i molest them and some times i get asskicked hard :)

For a new kid on the block SWTOR is doing better then i was expecting.

Originally posted by LadyNoh

SWTOR... Challanging. seriously, i was soloing heroic quests through the majority of it.

Was that in beta? Because I was in beta and have noticed quite a few changes since buying the released version.

Iam also lvl33 now on my Inquisitor - Sorceres and this game is pretty easy so far. Sure harder than WoWs questing or mob killing but still very easy. I think I just died once cause doing a 2+ hero Quest on Tatooine alone. And that only because Ive killed 3 golden Stars, didnt have alot of life, looted the stuff I had to for the quest and there another golden stars appeared lol =).

Maybe this is different for other classes, I also have a lvl28 Sniper but Iam playing that char with my friend so can´t really comment on him much for solo.

As Inquisitor it seems pretty OP so far I have to say, I have a shield, good heals, knochback and 2 stuns in PvE and if things go somehow wrong you have an instant CC for 3 mobs ... pretty OP :/.

Also since Iam not using anymore Khem Vhal for tanking but instead my DD Companion it´s so much easier and faster to kill stuff. My AoE knockback mostly is enough to kill all the mobs or nearly so mostly we are at full health. The ones that are still living will get a stun then lol, pretty OP.

Ive found Aion to be "harder" than this to kill stuff. You really had to stand on your toes as a sorc class or die easily even from normal mobs.

Originally posted by DarkPony

Glad to read that some people have very similar experiences :)

 

I play BH and at lvl 30 i couldn't finish my class quest in Tatooine. I was handed my ass on platter several times by the elite, i had to ask for help from guildmate. I wasn't really expecting it and Mako was completely useless in healing me.

Originally posted by onthestick

Originally posted by DarkPony

Glad to read that some people have very similar experiences :)

 

I play BH and at lvl 30 i couldn't finish my class quest in Tatooine. I was handed my ass on platter several times by the elite, i had to ask for help from guildmate. I wasn't really expecting it and Mako was completely useless in healing me.

Heh onthestick, I know the one you mean. Bad enough to have an elite to take down, but when they have a strong with them and they both outlevel you it ain't fun. Had a heck of a time with that myself on my BH towards the end of testing. Tatooine is not kind to Bounty Hunters, elite plus strong after that hammer hitting elite previously.

On the OP (Hey Pony!), that fight was tough, but epic. I had to run away and level up too. It was doable then, but by the skin of my teeth really. Loved every second of it.

As Dubyahite said, some of these chapter-ends were a LOT easier in testing. The last build (the one with all the big testing weekends) was when they ramped it up. Places like Belsavis were always gold and strong mob dense, but they've made it so you meet the challenge earlier and at more memorable times. I think it works really well.

Epic story is great, but epic story + tough fight that requires knowledge of your class and use of tactics is even better, in my book. I know I won't forget what I had to do on the Artus station for a long time, and I really felt I'd achieved something afterwards (which I know, it's a game, not a 'real' achievement) like when I beat out Manic Miner on my ZX Spectrum as a kid with no save games possible. Same 'Oh yeah!' feeling.

I get what Quizzical is asking, and tbh I'm not sure that (for agents anyway, Pony can probably reinforce this) that levelling up past that boss in particular and gearing up would allow you to faceroll it. The fight needs tactical awareness, and would still unless you hideously outlevel the boss (by that I mean closing out chapter 1 in the late 30s as opposed to the early 30s) which it seems unlikely to me that many would. Sure, they could...but isn't that true of any game? I guess for folks who don't like a challenge that will always be a way to avoid or at least mitigate it (in level-based games anyhow). Me, I like the challenge.

I'm playing a Jedi Guardian, once you hit level 30 the difficulty really ramps up. No, difficulty is the wrong word, the mobs just hit really, really hard. I play my class efficiently and rarely ever die, but even I have to rest between every fight even against a group of trash mobs.

For us Knights the greatest challenge for us is that we don't get our healer companion until a lot later in the game and we are underpowered, so 30+ is just a slow slog. I really miss the pace of the earlier fights, you'd just flow from one encounter to the next. But the the downtime between fights really breaks the momentum.

I don't find 30+ difficult, it's just a hell of a lot slower and a bit boring to constantly have to rest between every fight.

Originally posted by DarkPony

One of my biggest fears before I got to play SWTOR (and I patiently waited with that until the pre-launch) was whether it would be too easy and not challenging enough and maybe catering for a crowd with less experience in playing mmorpgs.

This was also based on beta impressions from players who complained that the difficulty was turned down as well as the experiences from players at demo's (who played with toned down difficulty settings). Of course most of that was based on weekenders and the starter planet content should naturally be more forgiving than the stuff you'll be doing later on.

Now, at level 33 and playing the content intended for my level, I can confidently say that there is plenty of aspects in which the game is far, far from "easy mode"; I actually just died three times trying to defeat a key npc of my level in my class quest and eventually had to give up and postpone it (I really prefer having no outside help on those).

 

- Class storylines have key npc's to defeat which can be almost TOO hard for players of the same level. Doable but you need to have everything sorted.

- Some non-heroic quests idem dito.

- Instances as well as heroic quests aren't easy at all after the first one or two: expect to wipe if someone makes an obvious mistake or if your party isn't cooperating well. Two manning + 2 companions is only viable in the first few instances as far as I can tell. (Unless you out-leveled them, of course).

- I've seen multiple huge world bosses which require raids to defeat. (Touch the skull in the Dune Sea and see what happens *chuckles*).

- Each class has a very wide range of skills to its disposal; becoming a master at using them effectively is a challenge on its own accord, especially in pvp.

- Picking the right companion to use, using the right skills and stances and kitting it out properly is another required aspect for much solo content.

- Repair bills get pretty damn expensive. Yesterday I paid 7k to repair my gear, my total bankroll at the time was 100k; the better your gear, the higher the bill.

- The normal solo quest trash mobs aren't so hard, because you'll be pretty much fighting them in groups of 2 to 4 all the time yet there are plenty of elites to fight pretty much everywhere (also outside of elite areas) and those can be a lot harder. Normally I'm ok with soloing a single elite of my level but add another one and I am in trouble.

- Even the blasted space on rails game gets increasingly harder: right now there are a few missions which I simply can't complete due to my ship's upgrades not being up to par.

 

And I haven't even done hard mode flaspoints & operations yet ...

The above is from my personal experience with a 33 operative. Other classes might have an easier time but  the game really urges me to get the most out of my (and my companion's) skills, gear, buffs and tactics. The game has a habbit of kicking you straight in the groin as soon as you get overly confident. Personally I like it that way and I am relieved it isn't so "easy mode" as I feared and I hope Bioware won't cave in to complaints about the difficulty.

Anyone else similar experiences?

 

 

shrug. 35, on my BH in beta started getting a lot harder, specially the flash points.

Also IDK, about operative. but BH was pretty hard. it seemed it was easier to just spam heals on myself, while companion tanked it, I never got to the point after change on beta (not playing atm) but they said they made herioc mobs harder. They incourage groups.

Also for the money, should be selling crafting/scavenging things in market or vendor. etc. *shrug*

Picking the right companion to use, using the right skills and stances and kitting it out properly is another required aspect for much solo content.

Or if you can heal just try spamming heals on your self, while companion dps's it *takes time but worked for BH*, yet you might have to kite around LOS for a lil, since medium armor, and bh has heavy.

Two manning + 2 companions is only viable in the first few instances as far as I can tell. (Unless you out-leveled them, of course).

I think this was more for if you had a party member leave at last boss or so, you have emergency instant replacement. Also don't understatement them, Imperial agent first companion main tank for us the second flash point. (yet i don't think tanking companion would quite work for us after that, maybe a DPS tho)

Class storylines have key npc's to defeat which can be almost TOO hard for players of the same level. Doable but you need to have everything sorted.

If ya got some friends to help, there is a option to allow people to come into your class quest. They can't particpate in any events but can help u defeat people (under options menu, somewhere is option to allow it)

Im often underlevelled for many of my class quests, and it really kicks you in the nuts sometimes. I dont go fighting elites without the right companion, stims and medpacks. :I

thank god im Biochem!

Originally posted by DarkPony

Anyone else similar experiences?

 

Regarding credits SWTOR is quite hardcore. The german community manager posted something about credits and long term motivation on the german speaking forum.  Once i was broke and couldnt even train my skill 200 crafter recipes :)

My first story encounter in the Jedi temple handed me my robe back 3 times.

Quite a few other story encounters handed me my robe back.

I can beat one elite. Anything more requires fast and precise cc action. A broken cc is danger or dead.

Respawns and/or accidentally pulling one silver con'd to much is danger. Encounters with many ranged classes are danger. Each encounter requires a different strat.  Sage damage skills has sometiems cc on it. I need cc to heal.

I have to itemize multiple chars. Me and at least two companions (tank and heal). 

Quest often rewards with a multiple choice. Its not hardcore but involving. I really have to look and decide which item to take.

A knight defintly is not underpowered and guess what...it has a healing companion..if you wanted to.

Remeber that silly boot liking droid you get whit youre ship?  you can -buy /make or collect by quest - outfit it whit armor and weapons.. it will be a alright fighter and a fine healer untill you get youre real "medic"

And if you think the other classes have great medics that can take away all dammage youre very very wrong, they are handy indeed and slightly better then the droid but not that great.

I tend to use my droid as active companion more then my medic or fighter since they get bonuses on craft missions and the droid aint :)  , besites its jsut funny to disaerm the droid and see it punch mobs in the face..its mean but funny :P

I play sith assassin and when I was lvl 34 I did a class quest which said I needed to be 35, the quest was about luring a jedi padawan into a trap by borrowing another lords assassins and then jump in last second and be the hero, only to gain access to the jedi enclave.

But those 3 borrowed assassins were 3 strong / silver mobs, and lvl 35, even with the jedi helping me, and my companion, I died 3 times before I finally took the last one down.

Make no mistake, this game can and will be challenging.

And if you for some reason like to torture yourself by doing the impossible, try playing solo with no companion, I guarentee you gonna have a hard time.

Want a challenge early game?

Try the "giant" robot in the dock area of Corasant. Its' not just an elite mob, its a "Open World Boss" (level 18).  I had a full 4 player group (levels 15 - 20) try. We laughed a lot after he one shotted the entire bunch of us.

Originally posted by Keogh

Want a challenge early game?

Try the "giant" robot in the dock area of Corasant. Its' not just an elite mob, its a "Open World Boss" (level 18).  I had a full 4 player group (levels 15 - 20) try. We laughed a lot after he one shotted the entire bunch of us.

 

Saw it and looked impressive. Was gone later, so guess someone managed to kill it :P