Yes I played some with Treek yesterday and I think she had something to say for each defeated enemy.

I found it fun and probably would have left if it was 8/10 buttons combat style. I even would like BW to make a better AI for mobs so that we would have more often the need to make more combat decisions

Sure and you got some (but yes not much). I think the main problem here is EA deciding not to invest enough money in the expansion. Ressources went to create new stories, worlds, ... and create or change game systems. It's seems they had no time and money to also create new repeatable content (heroics, daily areas, flashpoints, operations, PvP/GSF maps, ...)

I don't really understand this. Don't people know that game companies can't produce new content as fast as needed which means they have to rely on repeatable content ? Repeatable content that they can only keep interesting for some if there's a long term reward which implies a grind ? That's the reason all "end game" stuff in MMOs are based around that, grind for gear, grind for reputation, grind for achievement, grind for this or that currecny to do or get this or that... If you don't like to grind, companion nerf or not, you will leave because when you are done with things one time, the only things they can offer to your for some months is to redo part of the things you already done. As for the "To forget the stresses and frustrations of life and have fun" part, well first saying having fun doesn't mean much, it's completety specific to each player, some people have fun playing the GTN and that's what they mostly do, I have lots of things I should sell, lots of things I would like to buy but I don't do that because playing the GTN isn't fun for me. As for the combat fun, some people like god mode, I don't like them at all, so they can't please me and some others people.at same time. Then people also have different ways to forget the stresses and frustrations of life. It's again completely specific to each player, it depends on what they do in their lives, what they like...two people can want to escape the reality of their life through completely different ways and even opposite ways. In the end, we all play games to have fun but as we are all different, we like different things, your way to have fun is not my way which is not the way of a third and so on. I'm not defending the patch, just saying that while you had more fun between 4.0 and 4.0.2, some others also had less fun at same time, things aren't black or white so it needs some time to find an acceptable compromise for most (and yes I leave outside this conversation BW mistakes ie changing things too much, without communication, without explanation at the right time...)

Well I know only one cave with datacron and killiks on Alderaan, there's an HC2 in there and every day solo players do it alone...

Seems so, I have 8/8 on one server and 1/8 on another

I know Wildstar, I played it, even when it was in beta and I still think I'm right. Despite their claim it was designed for the non casual players, they made many mistakes mixing things that were completely casual with things that werent at all with things that always were hated. Their vision of what was needed for non casual players was completely wrong. Yes GW2 seems in a good state, a big parf of the reasons is their long time playerbase and their economic models, both the B2P at first and the new model now. As for SWTOR, I got no real idea what BW/EA want, not sure they even know what they want. As there's no direction or as they are constantly changing directions, it ends how I wrote, with half happy players that wish things would be a bit more this or that way to be really happy, have fun and tell their friends to join, which will never happen if BW continues this constant shift. Btw, we could also discuss for a while what viable means, CCP with Eve Online is viable, Blizzard with WoW is viable, the games are completely different, the amount of money generated is completely different, the players expectations are completely different and yes both are viable.

Here's the short version: Companions in healer stance that have melee basic attacks are worse than the others. Now the long one... From the 4.0 patch notes : For me to not be worried it requires that different companions in healer stance (at same influence rank) perform as efficiently their job. I just pick the one I like or want to play with, put him in healer stance and voila ! he's as good as another (at same influence rank). The thing is that's not the case... All companions heals are ranged, that's good but all companions also have a basic attack, for some companions it's a melee attack, for others a ranged one. Because of cooldowns and HoTs durations, companions always have, at some point, no special attack to use and thus use their basic attack. When it's ranged, there's no problem. When it's a melee basic attack, the companion AI moves the companion in melee range of a mob before doing the basic attack and THAT is a problem. Now that my healer companion is in melee range of the mobs we are fighting, she now takes damage from all the AOE, PBAOE that are directed at me, which wouldn't hurt her if she had stayed at range. As she takes damage, her AI starts to heal her instead of me, spending time and cooldowns. Thus I receive less healing than I should, making healer companions with melee attack subpar to the others. If you want an example, take a Guardian with Lana. Charge into mobs, Lana stays behind. You get some damage she casts her heals. Once her heals are on cooldowns and HoTs ticking on you, she wants to use her basic attacks which is melee, so she gets in melee range, using her saber or lightning from melee range. As she's now close to the mobs we are fighting, all the AOE damage mobs are doing also hurts her. She also gets interrupted, stuned, knockbacked. As she loses HP, she has to spend time and cooldowns healing herself instead of me. Now, do the same with a companion that has ranged basic attack, like Koth. He always stays at range, for healing and damage. He doesn't get hit by AOE, don't lose HP and thus heal me more. So yes, despite the claim, I have to worry when I choose a companion because they aren't performing equally. Solution : It doesn't seem too complicated : make all healer companions use ranged attack. The only thing that needs to be changed is to ensure that when you switch a companion into healing stance, the game also switches, if necessary, the basic attack to a ranged one at the same time they switch their abilities to healing skills. If you put them back into DPS/Tank mode, they get back their basic attack like they got atm. Contrary to the answer I got from my ticket, it's not an impression, a suggestion or an idea. We were promised we could play with any companion we wanted and get similar results, it's not the case, companions in healer stance that have melee basic attacks are worse than the others with ranged basic attack.

I disagree with the OP, the classic MMO model is still viable. There's a thing but it's not new, it's that such model doesn't appeal to everyone and probably not to the larger casual playerbase. The classic MMO model was always a niche but that's known for a while now. People tend to forget that mainly because of the numbers WoW achieved but don't understand its success comes for a part from reasons that are outside the game itself, like video games becoming mainstream and for another part from good qualities the game had compared to others at that time. Now that time has passed and that some players now understand they don't like to grind, things seem different and thus want something different. For a game company, It's just a matter of goals, expectations, targeted audience, ... and to create game systems that work well together toward thoses goals. Companion nerf or not, most of the casual crowd would have left SWTOR in a month or so... Why ? because at the end of the story, it goes back to grind and repeatable content, once casual players do the stories once or twice, there's nothing but things they don't like. It's the same each time, the only way to keep thoses people is to produce enough content quickly, which is not really possible or to create smaller grinds that make them feel they aren't grinding; problem is as the grinds are smaller, devs must create enough smaller grinds to always keep people busy while waiting for the next big chunk of story. As for the non casual players and yes they are enough to make viable MMOs, they also need MMOs tailored for them with different systems and designs than the casual MMOs. Again the error of many recent MMOs is they tried to mix designs, thinking they would attract all kind of players, the result is they get only half happy players. Just an example with PvP. Atm you need around 20k warzones comms to get best PvP gear, BW lowered the cost a few patches ago. 20000 comms, you get around 100 per warzone, that means 200 warzones. With one match every 15 min, that's 50 hours. As some people think they will have fun only once they get that gear, that they also need to augment it, which has it's own cost, casual players think it's too grindy, altaholics will think it's too grindy, people that think gear shouldn't be part of PvP think it's too grindy. Yet hardcore PvP'ers, people with a lot of time to play for whatever reasons, people that only play one or 2 characters, ... will think it's not a problem or even too "easy". BW made a compromise (i think it was in 3.3) by lowering the cost but again they still didn't manage to make everyone happy. By trying to follow the middle road, they don't please people that have opposite expectations. As long as Bioware and other MMO companies fail to make coherent MMOs, they will never make people happy and have successfull MMOs.

I liked SWG but I also remember all the bugs and design errors.

Yes there's a chance, same chance that the nerf would happen. Not sure why people think BW will change their ways, the same way they were silent while making the nerf, they can be silent while reboosting some the companions. Wait the next patch (not little hotfix), a few days before dataminers will tell us what's coming, the day before the patch, Eric will post about it...

Majority doesn't matter anyway, it's not a democracy. We can give feedback but BW can do what they want, even going against a majority of players

That's nice you're happy but as you don't give any information about what you did, not sure your opinions is that usefull as is. I mean: what class and spec what level what gear which companion, in which stance, what influence rank ? which heroics ? you did 3 ? 10 ? the 70+ we can do ? if you did only some, which on which planet ?

sorry to bump this, just would like some opinions and the *****torm made this disappear too quickly.

It doesn't bother me because I already played games with level sync, because I never liked the god mode pre 4.0 when you could go back to old content and solo it without companion, because it's free, because I understand, even if I think it's sad, that EA don't want to invest more money on the game and that the time BW spent in changing systems is time they couldn't use to create more new content. Btw the topic is not level sync, but feedback on companions nerf...

It was the default gear you get when you create a lvl 60 ie rating 188. It was on a new server I never played on so legacy lvl 0, no legacy presence, no datacron. I chose a Vigilance Guardian and Doc as a healer (Influence rank 1) I tried 3 different HC2s, The Tyrant on Belsavis, the one on Ilum and Counterstrike on Makeb. I never died, I admit it required sometimes a good knowledge of the class, mainly to reduce/delay the initial burst when fighting against some packs so it might be too hard for a new player but it doesn't seem strange to me, I don't think it's expected for a new player to jump into HC2s to solo them with basic gear on an instant lvl 60 they don't really know how to play... That said, I think some HC2s are too hard (like the Viper's Nest on Makeb) and because the HC2s on planets are supposed to be filler content, healers companions would be better somewhere between now and pre 4.0.2.

I just created a lvl 60 character on a new server and went to the fleet to pick up some HC2 missions and completed them without real problem (not saying it would be the case for all).

Well I just made a new lvl 60 char on a new server to test the Tyrant HC. I chose Vigilance Guardian with default utilities and Doc as healer. I had to use Saber Ward and Focused Defense to win and I finished at 90% HP.

Sure, still good to know where are the limits, if any. Atm as a Vigilance Guardian in gear rating 208 (including augments), almost all datacrons and all legacy presence with T7 or C2 (in heal mode) at influence rank 15, I was able to do all the HC2s from Tython up to Balmorra without real problem

Try The Viper's Nest on Makeb (Guardian/Sentinel)

So, with the current state of the game, I noticed I had way more trouble with some companions in healer stance than others, even when they were at same influence rank. The problem isn't the companion heals but their basic damage attack. Thoses companions have a melee basic attack even in healer mode which means they keep hugging mobs. As they are close to the mobs I'm fighting, they keep getting unwanted damage from AOE, then they start to heal themselves instead of me, making things harder than it should. So once again, I can't play with some companions I want to play with because the combat mechanics make them worse than some others. The solution is simple, when you choose to put a companion in healer mode, switch their basic attack to an appropriate ranged attack then revert to melee basic attack if put in DPS/tank mode.

Well, yes that's sad too but I think changing how EA/BW work is beyond our reach. 4.0 and 4.0.2 are indeed proof of mismanagement, bad communication, bad QA, ... The only thing we can do imo is to give constructive feedback to finally reach an acceptable state through multiple iterations of buffs and nerfs...that's why I tried to redirect people to more constructive ways...

I think all this thread is kinda sad, I understand being angry with a change but unsubbing because of one change, when they already said they were opened to do more tweaks to adjust things is imo immature and not constructive. You aren't 5 years olds throwing a tantrum because you didn't get the gift you wanted for Christmas. Instead post your character data (level, class, spec, gear rating, ...), your companion name, influence rank, stance and which content you can't do anymore and it will help devs to tweak companions to a better state. You were liking this game, give proper feedback and they will adjust better the change, enabling you to continue to have fun...

2 different PoVs on the same subject. I was talking from a player PoV, you're talking about the company PoV. It's effectively obvious that the current shift in MMO design is led by marketing and suits trying to milk players as much as they can. But tbh, I doubt they know that much considering the difference in playerbase between MMOs. Imo, game companies going after the big money don't really understand the entertainment business. Next to mainstream music and movies with thoses blockbusters and well known artists, you can find lots of different projects that are still profitable, they might generate less money in value but aren't as costly either. SWTOR is one of the best example of MMOs created by a company that don't understand MMOs or their different playerbases. If the goal was really to go after the money, they would have chosen to make a casual solo friendly game since the start. Even in the current state, they fail at that, while the KotFE story is a good step in that direction, their inability to produce enough content and to provide light grind will lead thoses players away. The same way, many things that were added between launch and KotFE makes no sense with the casual solo friendly goal: NiM and to a point HMs, ranked PvP, GSF, strongholds, achievements... all thoses aren't made for that target, they are a waste of ressources that could have been better used. The reason SWTOR failed at launch was that it wasn't casual solo friendly enough for the casual solo players while being at same time not MMO enough for the MMO veteran players. While the reason for a player to play or continue to play a game are indeed somewhat complicated, having fun, spending a good time... are part of the reasons they do so. Being only satisfied is enough to play a game but it's also a risky situation because people are one step from being attracted by something else and while it doesn't matter when you have a huge playerbase, it's a problem when you don't.

which ?