I was gone for about 18 months and I am having a blast. I like the extra exp on class stories so I now do ones that I would never have done before. I am a total PVE player. If I get bored, I will unsub. Right now, having lots of fun.

Any updates to this with the recent changes? I found as DPS, I had to use my companion as a healer. For me last fight before the final boss was the hardest.

Nice post that I agree with having played many of the same games you have.

Subs went up 33% according to EAs quarterly report. http://news.ea.com/press-release/company-news/electronic-arts-reports-q2-fy16-financial-results I know I am one of those new subs back after a year and half off.

Just waiting for forum account to be approved.

Hi, Are you still recruiting? Are you an alt friendly guild? Thanks.

I experienced the same - prior to patch Tank companions were very weak at keeping aggro.

Possible error in chart - Jaesa (dark) - weapon only gives me moderate influence gain with her.

You are right - just did it again and got over 5k influence even picking dark choices she disapproved of.

Old player recently returned. I have been doing class stories I have never done and noticed the influence for those companions goes up pretty nicely. For my old BH though having Mako at just 10 influence at level 55 is painful. For a test, I just ran Black Talon solo and got 4560 influence in about 20 mins. The bad side is a picked two light side convo choices (+200) which did not match my BH because I wanted to see the max influence. Not sure if there is weekly lockout on that, but will run again without choosing light on those two and see how much influence I get.

Maybe I a missing it but you can still take your time and do everything and craft. Personally on the characters stories I am doing for the first time, I have been training every other planet to offset part of what you are talking about. I have been staying on the planets long enough to keep my crafting up to my current level.

You can still do all the other content.

No, basically it is a way for people that want do all the main class stories, to be able to do that without having to redo the generic missions just to make levels in order to complete the class stories.

After playing just storylines and some lower level heroics both before and after the "nerf", I would not mind seeing the companions get a little boost. But they should not get put back to the level of pre-nerf. Pre-nerf there was simply zero risk of dying. I came back after a year off and was stunned at how easy the game had become.

I always delete blind invites - your "study" we would be a bit more valid if you actually asked people as opposed to blind invites.