Is SWTOR mostly focus on raiding like WOW or soloing?

[Frostx]

Hello everyone,

I know this might sounds stupid but pardon me.

Is SWTOR going to be like WOW where raiding/PVP is the only option for maxed level players or it offer solo content for players to experience the endgame of SWTOR?

I quit WOW 2 months ago, not because of the poor content but the idea of HAVE TO raid with other people to get gears or see the endgame. I even tried PVP but spamming the trade chat for average of 10 to 20 minutes to get in Rated battleground is not my idea of cup of tea. When I first saw the news about the release date of SWTOR, I scoffed because its a MMO and it will be like WOW where I HAVE TO raid to enjoy the game. However, someone told me that I don't have to raid because this game offered solo content too as well like crafter can make BIS gears and such. Is that true?

[Melanieshaman]

I am not a raider, but in swtor, i probably will, as you don't have to grind dailies or heroics to get geared up enough to hit some magical number to enter into raiding. BW said at max lvl you can go straight into the first raid. So i will solo the endgame world, raid but mostly pvp as i LOVE to pvp.

[mystik]

you won't have to raid if you really don't want to. it's easier and more accessable. there will be solo max level content and plenty of crafting.

[Deleted]

you arent forced to raid, you can solo quite allot and progress your very own character, as said before, BioWare has put the RPG back into the MMORPG

[Karteli]

From interviews, raiding (operations) is not going to be what you are likely used to. They are story driven, with sets of operations in each tier, with stacked tiers. Completion of an operation completes a story or leads into the next one.

There will be multiple difficulties. Two, but hinted at a third? Sizes are 8 or 16. Mechanics might be a boss fight, or a "puzzle" .. a joke was dropped by a dev that they would "bring back the Tower of Hanoi..". What that will mean, I'll have to wait for it.

It was also said by BioWare that a player will reach max level well before the solo & personal stories are complete. So theres stuff to still do, then there is crafting, manipulation of companions and perhaps some entertainment in the Cantinas, where sometime post-launch they would like to add a card game "Pazaak" game room.

Space combat will be in at launch .. Kind of like Star Fox .. you can do missions to upgrade your ship (solo based).

Swoop Racing would be a nice feature .. and given how much it gets mentioned all over the web, it might happen.

[Domenik]

There is alot to do solo at 50 and there is alot to do besides raiding how ever Bioware has stated. The best gear, rarest crystal colors, even the best crafting patterns and mats needed to craft them comes from the 8 or 16 player raids. Though if your not interested in doing the raids having the best gear is not important .

[Kyira]

I will raid in SWTOR when/if I find a decent guild but I will not let raiding deter me from the levelling and story. No more power levelling just to get to the raid content like I did in TBC, Wrath and Cata. I wanna experience the full story of every character I play.

[Strikesuit]

No one is going to have to raid in TOR for quite a long time because the game will be new and there will be much to do outside of raids. Cataclysm suffers from the raid or die problem because it only offered five levels and a few new zones. If anything, I expect people to be amply occupied for the next two years if they play at a casual pace.

[Frostx]

No one is going to have to raid in TOR for quite a long time because the game will be new and there will be much to do outside of raids. Cataclysm suffers from the raid or die problem because it only offered five levels and a few new zones. If anything, I expect people to be amply occupied for the next two years if they play at a casual pace.

Pretty much right on the spot. That's what I dislike about WOW (for me of course) is RAID OR DIE concept. I have no problem with people raiding or the idea of raiding (operation) but it shouldn't be the ONLY option after you leveled. Thank for all of your feedbacks and discussions.

[smashzu]

There's an entire world for end-game solo content, as well as 250 hours of questing to level 50, a large amount of which is class specific, and could be replayed 7 more times without becoming stale. There's plenty to do without raiding/pvp.

[Seanali]

So basicaly you are saying to me SWTOR is a game for 1000% social dead ppl who cant find friends even in an online game and do the content
which makes them need a soloable content.
Then why the fuck do they make it mmo and run trough all the crap of sbscribing if everyone is going to play solo like in a single play,
why dont they put 120€ and put it as single player they will earn good and wont have to worry about servers and bullshit.
Do you ppl even know what MMO means?
It is massive multiplayer online it means you go get friends and get in a nice group the bigger the better and go do content
for questing best would be 5 man and for operatins huge quest storys 8-10 or even 16 as said before, even quests in this game should be grp qsts not doable by 1 player and his companion but by 3 or more ppl so you would acctualy be in an rpg story with friends solving puzzle and finding best way out of trouble.
So I am asking if you guys dont want to play mmo style why dont you go and play single player there are awesome singleplayer games
obviously the thing you like most in SWTOR is the fact that you can solo all shit so why not play a singleplayer then?
Are you wanting it to have mmo in its description so other people would think you arent there for a game, so others think you are there to "play with friends"?
I am ot hater of SW on contrary i like sw but when i first saw news about this game i was like: cool finnaly a SW mmo where bunch of real Jedi can run in and get in bloodbath with sith but now all i see is a subscription based single player with ability to see other ppl single playing their game too,
I really hoped to find a good guild with which I would go on some raid or pvp each night or atleast good questing story but no if i sub this ill be 1 month doing singleplayer jedi knight story next momnth sith inquisitor story bcs jedi knight part is over.

I like SW and if its going to be MMO it should be a real MMo not covered up single player. I hope they will improve this not ruin it.
Sorry for typos.

[Pretorian]

@Seanali,

You got it wrong. It's about CHOICE. You can team up or you can play solo. Maybe some days you don't feel like talking/playing with other people and you just wanna quest or craft/gather. Some days you're gonna feel more active and want to team up with people, raid, pvp...etc. It's up to you what you wanna do. I think they made a good choice offering us both options.

It looks like it's black and white for you. It's not.

[Omians]

@Seanali,

You got it wrong. It's about CHOICE. You can team up or you can play solo. Maybe some days you don't feel like talking/playing with other people and you just wanna quest or craft/gather. Some days you're gonna feel more active and want to team up with people, raid, pvp...etc. It's up to you what you wanna do. I think they made a good choice offering us both options.

It looks like it's black and white for you. It's not.

yup pretty much this

[Spaceshaman]

No one is going to have to raid in TOR for quite a long time because the game will be new and there will be much to do outside of raids. Cataclysm suffers from the raid or die problem because it only offered five levels and a few new zones. If anything, I expect people to be amply occupied for the next two years if they play at a casual pace.

Hmm, you missed the meaning of "raid or die".

It came from classic WOW where a Predition blade rogue could destroy you if you were in DM or UBRS gear (the best available blue gear). Even if you were the rogue's counterclass (warrior at that time).

Resilience helped this a bit. You won't be globaled by raid gear guy but you will still die.

I fully expect SWTOR to be a riad or die game, I accept that and I plan on raiding.

[ancestorTOR]

I think SWTOR is mainly focused on providing a new type of MMO that gives story and makes you feel like a part of the universe. So our standard conventions of "lulz i liek 2 pvp" or "lulz i liek 2 raid" or "lulz i liek to collect petz lulz" should be thrown out the window. Be a part of the game and see what it has to offer. There will be something for all.

But mainly, it's Bioware. I mean, they can crap on a disc and sell it as a new turd-based RPG and I'd likely buy it. The collector's edition even, with extra corn packed in. And then declare that this is the finest turd ever made while lambasting those who disagree with me.

Oh internet, what have I become?

[Pretorian]

Oh internet, what have I become?

You're falling to the Dark Side, young padawan !

[Sparkconater]

I think Bioware's realization that being too dedicated to social content and ignoring single player content is where many MMOs fall apart. Given the amount of time people play, and the realization that there are more small guilds and less big guilds, there needs to be some balance where there is a nice amount of both. The realization that there is 300 hours of single player story, as well as who knows how much flashpoint/operation hours of play, tells me that right out of the gate the "normal" player will have plenty to keep them busy. I'm not so sure for the power level world first player, but for the John Smith of MMO, I have faith there is plenty for some time.

[Deleted]

I expect there will be lots of solo stuff, and sólo, soló, solodk, hansolo, hunsolo, solotsmug and so on.

But I jest...

Blizz took a standard formula used in many other mmo's and then it evolved into the 10-25 and pug raiding you see today due to demand. When you are dealing with a statistical pool of 10 million players, then you can pretty much guarantee that this is the optimal setup. I would go so far as to say the 4-8-16 setup was deliberatly chosen so as not to be the same as WoW, particularly not to be seen to be the same a WoW. It may also revolve around trying to develop a more close-nit feeling in guilds, trying to keep the numbers down. Everything I've read on these forums recently leads me to believe that Bioware want to keep things personal, with more dependence on the story, than on the group content.

But, top raiding guilds have a lot to offer, much of the magic of early WoW (for me) was watching videos of Nightmares Asylum doing major domo and Rag, wondering if I'd ever see that myself (I eventually joined a raiding guild and did) but Raiding is where you can have really epic and tough stuff happening and show off incredible encounters and mechanics. It's good to showcase something like that.

End game raiding also offers the best way to pass time between content patches (from a company PoV). People will go for weeks learning and then farming for items until new content, instead of simply putting their account on hold until new story arrives.

In the end, it will have to have both to be a real contender. I just hope they don't go down the road Rift did of doing many world events the servers cannot handle. Every one of them I tried where there were more than 100 people around caused so much lag and disconnects, it totally ruined the effort.

[Caliph]

As many have said you'll have a lot to do by yourself with friends, or guildies. It could be crafting, pvp, operations, etc. The bottom line is the rpg is back and the story will make it awesome. There's nothing that says you can't raid or that you have to raid and that's what sets this game apart for me. The raid or die mentality is old and should be vanquished. A choice is always better but sadly in a lot of today's mmo's it's either raid or grind pvp. That's just terrible.

I'm leveling an alt shaman in wow right now cause i'm so bored and you see how shallow the game is. They redid the entire vanilla world and used all those man hours and resources to do so but you level through it so fast you don't even get a semblance of what the story is. There's like no reason to even read the text, enjoy the zone, understand the zone or anything. just kill everything, collect everything and keep moving to the end game grind. Blizzard knew that was the case but they went and wasted all those resources on the leveling zones any way. that's just poor direction, and management.

Bioware I think knows a game without story is folly and is making this right imo. Even after you've done everything (if possible) you can role play and what better game universe to role play in than star wars.

good luck and have fun.

[Puremallace]

Not to point out the obvious, but I find it scary that noone actually answered the question with hard numbers two months 17 days out from a release date. All I know personally for end game raiding there is one 16 man raid with 5 bosses called Eternity Vault.

How many flash points are there at end game?