More and more people have reached the current peak of Star Wars: The Old Republic – level 50. I recently wrote about those people who felt the need to get to level 50 within days of starting the game. Today we have another perspective on the matter.
Visual approximation of a roving pack of content locusts
Isabelle Parsley of MMORPG.com writes a nice article on people reaching level cap too fast. I must say, I didn’t start out agreeing with the article. It initially seemed to talk about bringing back the level treadmill and grind of past games to make leveling take forever again. Now I’m all for meaty content but I remember those old grinds of killing countless creatures for no particular quest in order to get one more level. Bad touch.
But as the article moves on, Isabelle talks about people she calls ‘content locusts’. These are similar to the people I was talking about in my article. They reach level cap as quick as possible and then complain there is nothing to do. Isabelle takes it a step further by insinuating that companies pander to that small percentage of folk by making content exclusively for them.
Here is a small snip of her article:
“Would games today really fail if it took people, say, 6 months to reach max level instead of 6 days as it has in SWTOR? 10 years ago we had glacially slow leveling and very little in terms of directed questing and storylines so yes, the grind did become a little tedious at times. But now that we have things like voice-acting, object interaction and more complex storylines and quests, we move past them so damn fast we never get to actually enjoy them.
I like to blame the content locusts for this, at least to a large extent – that small percentage of players whose goal isn’t to experience content but to consume it as fast as possible as they race inexorably through a game. The people who, driven to hit max level as rapidly as they can, then sit there and whine loudly about how they have nothing to do and how they’re still hungry. There’s no satisfying that kind of player.
Then I blame the devs for actually listening to those people, for whatever reason, and for assuming the content locusts are representative of gamers as a whole. And finally, I blame WoW and other design teams for being so proud of their end-game content (justifiably or not, that’s not the point) that they pushed us into experiencing it as fast as possible – to the ultimate detriment of their own product and their own subscriber base. WoW’s subs numbers over the last couple of years and the increasing discontent of a player base turned into locusts by the nature of the game they play seems to bear me out on this one. At some point, mindless (and repetitive) consumption gets boring for even the most dedicated fan.”
The article is a good read no matter your opinion on the matter and you can find the rest of it here.
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I play MMOs for the group based raid/operation content. I don’t start playing until I hit level cap. Leveling is boring, the only part of leveling that is at all fun is dugeons…again where you can play in a group.
I will never truly enjoy the leveling process until they design a system that allows us players who play support roles to engage in those roles through leveling. And no, healing or tanking for a pet is not the same.
I reached lvl 50 in 3days more than 40 hour play session. It is called being hardcore. there is nothing to do because there is no solid PVP in place to keep anyone from boring out. There are also no rewards for doing other things within to game to help progress your character except for raiding, lack of customization and lack of Crafting. the Crafting is very limited nothing like they mentioned (you will be the only one on the server to make these!) also not everyone has a guild.
You, sir, are a content locust.
Games dont need content to be good. They need good mehcanics for long term play. What is the point of playing with a mass number of people when you have nothing to show off. Just your lvl and how much you enjoy the roleplay? Derp-Read a book.
There is no such thing as a Content Locust, maybe for a single player game like Skyrim, but what is the point of rushing through when the point of the game is to be enveloped in the atmosphere. Whereas in a MMO everyone races to endgame for the famous world firsts and best of the best. when you acomplish something in an mmo, it means nothing because someone did it before you. sure games are just for fun, but fun can mean a lot of different things to different people.
This seems to me like a qq post from a casual pov. When you play with a game with a large number of people there will be a demand because a lot of people rush to the peak and expect more of what is very much lacking.
Derp Role Playing Game.
Think that’s the point they’re trying to make, there’s the massively multilayer with on-line sub fees that tried to hook people to play after they finished the levelling by making raids.
Now every game tries to keep the user base on with that and the players that rush to get to the end game make the levelling part worse for those who enjoy it since the focus is on pleasing the end game people who rush getting there.
Not saying either way of playing the game is right, but they’re different games, may as well make a game where you buy the game, sign in, and immediately start raiding for those who just want end game, and have levelling games for ‘casuals’ as you put it.
The story is great in SWTOR. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that. But I do agree with Pashtun that leveling is boring. If it took 6 months to his max level i don’t think you would see a large player base get to that point. So if i get to say 50 in 4 months i may have to wait 6-10 months before there is enough 50s to do anything.
I think mmo’s need to think out side the box. Think up some crazy new ideas.
Why not get rid of leveling. You are playing for the story and all end game content and such you can do out the gate. Everyone can do everything all the time. (Something different of course has its ups and downs throwing it out there)
PvP. Normalize stats. I think this is much even with SWTOR now. If you normalize stats then level 1′s and level 50s could pvp each other with no problem. What do you get from pvp? Orange gear you can then customization. What about the available skill difference? Wouldn’t it be cool if you had like a set of nine skills the only worked in pvp. Then pvp would be 100% separate from PvE which is great.
Of course people will hate my ideas and some may go oh their is some good stuff there. I think the main issue with MMO creators today is that they focus on the people that do nothing but play the game. With out trying to be rude and generalize here but the people who don’t work and have jobs and families. These users have the ability to play all day every day. While people like me who work and have families don’t have that type of time.
Long post, to many thoughts.
I play MMO’s for the leveling content and tend to take my time. My highest level character is 34 and I tend to log about 3-4 hours a night. If I don’t see endgame on any of my characters in three months, I’ll still be having a blast and by then there will be much more content waiting for me at endgame.
When I play I mix it up too, some nights I might just do solo class questing or another night might be all PVP and Flashpoints so things never get old. To me the journey IS the game rather than the end point but I’m also an old school RPG fan and have been playing MMO’s since my first one, Anarchy Online back in 2003.
I still enjoy the end game raiding when I max out but it’s not the ONLY reason to play the game. I think today’s current trend of players who state “the game starts at endgame” are mostly current or former WoW players that never really enjoyed RPG’s but got introduced to the genre at a time when Blizzard changed their game to promote people getting to the end asap.
Totally agree. This is my play style. There’s just 2 different styles trying to play the same game. Gotta hand it to the devs for addressing both interests.
I agree. Right now I have eight different characters, highest is 32. I rotate between them when I feel like it. To cut down on repetition, I spaced out light and dark characters so I can see both sides, and some characters I solely do class quests and make up the XP with PVP/space/flashpoints so I don’t have to grind sidequests I’ve already seen.
I’m having a blast with the game. I enjoy every one of the stories I’m playing through thus far (wellllll, not a huge fan of the SI but I still like the class). I never really get bored of the game, I could honestly play for hours upon hours. Why? Because when I get sick of one character I got to the next one.
I don’t have a ton of time so I’m logging a couple hours each night and more on the weekends. I’m going at my own pace and soaking up all the content. And then when I get to endgame, there will be a huge amount of content to do, I’ll have a character of each AC and I’ll have seen every story. There’s a ton of content in this game, the people who blew through to 50 and are now twiddling their thumbs are missing out.
We see eye to eye good post my friend.
Count me in agreement. I really don’t see what the rush is for; is the game going to disappear/close in a year, a month, or a week so you have to squeeze in as much as possible in that time? Regardless people who rush through the content and then complain that there is nothing to do at the end are hypocrites. There was plenty to do along the way you just skipped it cause you thought it wasn’t important.
Hmm food for thought. I think I may be one of those locusts. I generally hate raiding so in WoW have gotten very bored when hitting the cap. I must confess that I’ve been playing SWTOR for a week now and have 3 Lev 15 chars already but this has been at the expense of skipping cutscenes and rushing through.
Thanks for the article. I think I will take the advise and take the rest casual like
“I will never truly enjoy the leveling process until they design a system that allows us players who play support roles to engage in those roles through leveling. And no, healing or tanking for a pet is not the same.”
@Pashtun I think that healing my Companion Character is a great way to level as a healer. I get to DPS some and keep him healed. This is what I would do if I was playing with another person. How is it not the same?
As far as locusts. I tend to do a lot of flashpoints and as many heroics on a planet that I can. I also do enjoy the space missions so that helps take up some of my time. I think this game lets you level too quickly. I easily am 3-4 levels ahead of where I should be making the content even more easy than it already is. Bonus series, yes please, but it is hard to stay on the planet for another level when you’ll start the next planet 4-5 levels ahead of where you should be.
I very rarely skip cut scenes. It really is what I like the most out of the game. Are some of them long? Yes. Boring? Yes. Too many aliens? Yes. For the most part though they are great and I enjoy the story that they all tell. ‘
Long story… I like the leveling a lot. Will I like endgame too? I hope so.
What u describe is not group content. Players that play support roles like playing with other real players in dungeons, heroic quests, or operations. I hate healing a pet, its not the same. If you don’t understand that, you likely dont play support roles.
your right, healing a companion isnt the same as healing a player… because the companion doesnt go running off aggroing mobs then wonder why the healer didnt save his life.
so you mean like guild wars then
I’ve always been a single player rpg so the endgame stuff doesn’t seem that appealing to me. Progression for me has always been the attractive part. I’m always striving for that next level or next power. I’m a new MMO player with swtor so i’m still open to the endgame idea but the concept of hitting 50 and spending the next who knows how many months/years playing trying to get that next piece of gear just seems like an endless trail of rinse and repeat.
On the opposite side of the coin i can see how its appealing endgame can be. Running around the Fleet and i see lvl 50s with giant landspeeders as mounts makes you all jealous. “how did he get that?” So i can see both sides, for now i think i’d rather being enjoying a new story class then grinding it out for a new mount.
I think more MMO developers need to wise up and create more games that require no actual “leveling”. You can still have quests, and story progression, without having a numerical value to assign to that progression, nor a limitation regarding when you actually get your specific skill set.
I like quick leveling systems, not because I’m rushing to end game…but because I’m an altoholic. I like playing everything the game has to offer, and learning the ins and outs of not just one class, but multiple.
If MMOs decided on a “no grind, no levels” type of model, and instead focused solely on what other games would have once considered “end-game” then I think the MMO community would be better for it. Naturally, it would require the company in question to produce a game with massive amounts of content straight out of the box, but in the end, those who prefer “end-game content only” would have nothing to complain about.
Yes, some people like the leveling process, and seeing their chosen characters get better as time goes on. Personally, I would rather have everything at my disposal as soon as I created the character, pick and choose what works for me in regards to skills, and be on my way to awesome dungeon-delving or PvP content or exploring the expansive world laid out before me.
I think adopting a similar model to Guild Wars would be nice, with only select number of skills you can use per class. However, in the effort to make things more complex, character creation should give you the option to pick from a plethora of skills associated with that given class, but you can only use those skills and not the ones you did not choose when you created the character. If you want to respec, that would be okay, I think…for a huge price tag of in game cash / credits.
I dunno…I may be one of those content locusts out there and you may disagree with my ideas, but you don’t see me complaining that there is nothing to do at end game in SWTOR. I have plenty to keep me occupied and happy.
Leveling too fast or too slow is a matter of perspective that depends on factors such as available play time, personal goals, interest in crafting, and many others. With a million people playing the game, there will be no ‘perfect balance’ to it.
I like the locust metaphor. I’m going to use that.
One of the best parts of SWTOR is the way that Bioware didn’t buy into the ridiculous mentality that the game is only important at the level cap. They’ve made a game that’s a a lot of fun from level 1 onward. Some people won’t see that or ignore it because they’ve internalized the mentality that only the end game is important. I’m not sure how someone can take a look at the unique class stories, fully voiced quests, worlds and environments steeped in Star Wars lore and conclude that it’s boring. People don’t appreciate what SWTOR is giving them. Let them go back to vanilla WoW or EQ and learn again what boring and grinding really is.
If you don’t like the leveling process then try The Secret World when it comes out. Other wise wait for Guild Wars 2 for the people who don’t like to level. I am sure you will love to level up every toon in that game.
In most other games, I am a locust. It’s mainly because 9 out of 10 times, I am not interested in the story. I just want to get to max level so that I can play with my friends who are also max level.
I’m also in the camp that the game doesn’t really start until max level. This is because once you hit max level, all the stuff that you passed by while leveling is obsolete. Unless you’re really interested in story lines, there is no reason to go back and do those quests. Also, there is no challenge in the level-up game, it’s just faceroll and loot.
Now, in SWTOR, I have to say that I am going a bit slower. I haven’t hit max level yet (at 47 right now). Several of my friends that play are already max level, but right now I don’t feel pressure to join with them at the level cap. Possibly because there doesn’t seem to be much that interests me at max level. The terrific grind of PvP gearing makes me want to cry, and after raiding in WoW for years, I’m not that interested in operations.
That being said, I don’t think that there will ever be a way to do away with leveling in an MMO or RPG in general. When you boil it all down, leveling and gear acquisition are two sides of the same coin. They’re just vehicles that are used to make your character stronger. Currently the progression goes like this:
level from 1 to max
grind lower difficulty dungeons for gear
use gear to grind mid difficulty dungeons for gear
use gear to grind high difficulty dungeons for gear
use gear to grind lower difficulty raids for gear
use gear to grind mid difficulty raids for gear
use gear to grind high difficulty raids for gear
Removing leveling from the game would only alleviate the 1st step to this process.
Based on this, the solution seems to normalize levels and gear across the board, and you just play the game. Well in that case, you have no progression, and may as well be playing a FPS or similar type game.
I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the standard MMO formula is broken. I rarely see good descriptions or analysis of why the formula is broken, and I never see coherent and competent solutions on how to correct the issue.
I throw it back at Isabelle, did you ever think the locust just move at a faster pace than the slow herd of “normal” MMO players?
I thoroughly enjoyed SWTOR story and leveling, it was dynamic and interactive and kept me yearning for more. But I don’t need to sit and waste time at each story or quest hub. I don’t need to wonder aimlessly in a zone looking for something to do, or appreciating a well designed mountain. I get a quest, I get it done, I move on. I pvp, I learn my class, I advance to stay strong. I do ALL of this in enjoyment of the game, my class, and PROGRESS.
I wonder if all you see are people complaining they have nothing to do when they hit end level because they do so in general or on the forums so vocally. The flip side is, have you ever been part of the first wave of max level characters on a server? Exploring parts of an MMO no one else has seen? Killing mobs, and invading raids (however glitched they are…) that no one has written strats about? This has it’s own enjoyment, it’s own glamour, that I do not expect slow levelers and non-locust to understand.
I think the people who are locust are changing the way games are made, and are a necessary part of mainstream, monthly billed MMOs. You want an evil, long, pointless grinds, put it in a F2P game with micro transactions. Tiered leveling hurts more than it helps, and actually requires more out of a developer in the long run. Try making the leveling experience dynamic and epic every ten levels, and waiting a few months to up to cap… see how many people you keep interested.
I agree, WoW has changed the landscape of MMO’s, and people’s patience for them, and their ability to digest content. Some people might not like this… some people love it. But one thing is for certain, you would not see the mass appeal and money being put into our beloved MMOs if it wasn’t for WoW proving you could attract such a large audience. Change if good, at times challenging, but good. New systems, will be created and meshed, and instead of one MMO to rule them all (which is fun at times) there will be MMOs for their own market segments (which we are currently seeing happen/develop).
In the end, Bioware has done a good job with leveling, now they need to pick up the broken pieces of the game and make something out of it (Ilum, buggy raids, poor itemization, ability lag, etc etc…).
Regards,
Riggs
I don’t know why they can’t just slow leveling down considerably and then create raiding content for people within certain level brackets. They already have somewhat done this with Flashpoints. You get a new group based dungeon to play every few levels. These are obviously much smaller and disappointing I’ve found than the exciting first entries you got once you reached level 10 but still if they just slowed the levels down and let us have major raids that we can do every 5 or 10 levels then it could be the best of both worlds.
They could make these raids as unlocks and so you can keep replaying them as you level but they scale to the level of the group so if you have a level 40 guys in a group of mostly level 25s then it kills a lot of the exp and item drops. It could give end-game freaks something to do along the way.
Also, I don’t know why people say they can’t utilize their specialties during leveling. You can share quests with anybody and as long as you’re the only one of your class in your group you can even bring people along for story missions. Companions are there for when you don’t want to or can’t find any friends to play with.
Fact is that end game junkies act like they’re the only ones that count. MMOs don’t have to be as suffocatingly dull or keyboard-shatteringly difficult as they used to be just to keep the leveling slow.
But there’s no point really getting into it. Arguing MMO mechanics and design is like trying to talk politics on the internet. People don’t listen mostly. Devs may be smart but usually publishers override them or put pressure on them to do the thing that the last successful guys did.
Sadly commercial success in our economy is defined by the establishment by NOT doing new or interesting things. Its about cynically crunching the numbers til you get as much money as possible. This is a legitimate business tactic, somewhat, despite the fact that successful companies fear taking risks and so stagnate the market until someone new does something cool at which point they buy them out. However, this says nothing about the quality of the product itself, just the mass marketability of it. Games have declined in creative appeal largely because they’ve left the niche market and become mainstream, and we all know that mainstream consumers are the dullest and most unimaginative, predictable suburban sell outs known to man. Once you market something to the masses its a miracle if it manages to be better than just ‘ kinda pretty good’.
There’s two big problems with Parsley’s argument. The first is that the length of a game is measured in actual hours played, not in total elasped time between when you buy the game and when you finish it. As such, this so-called “leveling speed” will always vary greatly based on how often you play.
In SW:TOR’s case, each character class is approximately a 200 hour game, which is verging on Elder Scrolls-length. The thing is, the many people who played a single character for ten hours per day over a two week holiday are going to be pretty close to level cap even if they “took their time” to do everything.
Of course, the key words here are “each character class.” SW:TOR’s advantage over MMO’s is the fact that making an alt means a new story, so if you really want to do EVERYTHING then it’s a 1600 hour game. Even the so-called “content locusts” are not going to lack things to do between major updates for a LONG time.
Considering the above, in order to make it take “six months to reach max level” for a dedicated player like Parsley advocates, BioWare probably would have had to (a) release the game at a less-than-peak part of the year when people have less time to play, as well as (b) make each class at least the length of the entire Elder Scrolls series.
Once again, the key words above are “each class.” Let me repeat that. EACH. CLASS. Which brings us to our second problem: Development time. It was easy back in the supposed “good old days” to make a game that took six months to reach level cap, because the old school MMO’s made you level primarily by killing boars in the forest, and it doesn’t take very long for a developer to fill a forest with boars and call it a day.
Now, Parsley admits that the old ways were often painfully tedious and grindy, but says that we don’t have to worry about that now that “we have things like voice-acting, object interaction and more complex storylines and quests.” Except that someone has to *produce* that voice-acting and those complext storylines and quests. As is, BioWare spent nearly six years making a 1600 hour game. Parsley wants an 8000 hour game. You do the math.
———————————-
TL;DR version:
An MMORPG can have any *two* of the following three characteristics:
1. Minimal grinding.
2. People don’t reach level cap over winter break.
3. Releases before 2030.
Jesus stop linking other people work, its like the Huffington Post up in here
You lame attempt at making a joke failed. You know the writers of this site will not stop linking to other articles because they enjoy starting conversations and informing people of different ideas. Waste your time elsewhere TORWARS locust. kthxbye
The grind will always be… after all, they want to keep you subscribed!
I think having the cut scenes/voice acting and options was a brilliant move..it keeps me engaged.
Sooooo… I went to Level 50. about 6-7 days played. Which isnt fast at all.
BUT a few cents about some issues
- Only half of the Flashpoints have Hardmodes? Why? Why is Esseles one of the harder Hard Modes? Doesn’t make sense. Going in there wiping, thinking: Well not geared enough. Gearing up. Then rolling through the rest of the HM.
- Being at 50, I hoped for High Level Flashpoints. Well, there are 4.
- I hoped for PvP, but it is simply unplayable with 8 fps and drops to 4 on my i5-750, 12G RAM, and 260 GTX aequivalent card. Plus Voidstar cheats.
- Blabla story blabla. Who cares? I was tapping it all away since level 40 anyway, and having my trooper move to Coruscant AGAIN because General Garza was to dumb to use the phone wasn’t really as in “story” but more as in “numbless traveling to listen to a cutscene”. Furthermore I was like: “Rescuing x y z again?! How stupid are they all?”. I really like good stories, but these were really mediocre at best. There were about two stories that I found to be really excellent: The Czerka Corporation questline on Tatooine (Republic) and the Voss questline (Republic). Might be that people who do not read as much are more enticed by the B-Level storytelling.
Is there enough content? Hell no! I have a level 27 Gunslinger. Would love to level her, since her storyline seems to be a lot better than the Trooper’s (if you leave out “insert silly random names here” and the “find someone no your ship and do whatever she tells you to instead of kicking her out of the airlock and get rid of that bounty on your head” logic fallacy).
But how should I? Are there any quests I havent done in the first go? Yes, there are, in the additional areas. Getting there isn’t easy. There are no alternative paths to travel. There are no alternative quest routes. Do I like alts? Yes, a lot, I like playing different chars. But I don’t like grinding through the exact same content again. Where are the alternatives from level 10-50? Really different storylines, leading you to different planets? It’s not that there are no different planets, there are all the planets of the other faction I have never set a foot upon.
So… in the end… i like the crafting system. I like having lots of speeders. I dislike waiting for the rest of my guild.
I do not understand why do you play this game then. You hate the stories (or find them uninteresting), the leveling, and you are bored of the end game content, so why do you play? Oh and how does kicking *her* off your ship remove the bounty, place on you by a crimelord,on your smugglers head?
TBH I’m pacing myself on purpouse, there just isn’t much in the way of max level content. I’ll probably take my Trooper to 50, then go back to my other characters.
Well whatever side you fall on in this — at least it has caused some lively debate!
[...] sure to check out this article on TORWars or [...]
I have indeed experienced the “too high for the zone” issue too. I would like to have the “no more XP” button as in EQ2. So I could enjoy the quests and rewards and not go, ah, yeah thanks… I like that blaster, no really… if I got it 10 levels ago.
I blasted through Taris with my trooper and am still way over level for Nar Shadda.
For enjoying the content I want to be on par in terms of levels…
Cheers
Olaf
Love the Game. the content is amazing. i would like it if it took and average player a year to reach level 50. and a hardcore player 4 months minimum.