If that were actually true it would be meaningful, except it wasn't. The "best" companion was always Treek (tank or healer, very good at both) or HK-51 (excellent DPS, bar none). All other companions were decidedly second rate by comparison. Even for those who lacked Treek or HK there was one companion they pretty much had to use or function effectively at a disadvantage for not using. Now instead of every marauder running around with Quinn or the Ship Droid (if they didn't have Treek to heal) or every Operative being stuck with Kaliyo or SCORPIO (to keep the mobs backs pointed in the right direction) people have the ability to use any companion they might like. That is a definite improvement. I would rather see everyone running around with a different companion (at least in terms of appearance) then to see an army of Quinn or Treek clones because everyone wants a healer. Now at least if everyone is using the same companion it isn't indicative of anything more or less than a particular companion being popular for their own sake, not for power's sake.

Yeah and what's all this with all the different kinds of adaptive gear we can wear? I mean they all just function the same, and are basically just reskinned versions of each other. My Eradicator's set functions identically to my Reaver's! SLAP IN THE FACE!!!!! See how silly that is? Even if they are functionally the same variety means people can pick the "skin" (as you put it) that they like and be happy. We're not all running around in exactly identical gear and we aren't all running around with the same companion. That's a positive thing. And yes I do realize that there's a lot of people running around with the same companion - but that doesn't mean the system is broken any more than when everybody and their uncle was running around in the eradicator's set. Options are good, even if some of them work out to be more popular that doesn't change anything.

Buffs and Nerfs will happen, count on it. Never pick a class/race/pet/whatever because it is the 'flavor of the month' - that generally means a nerf is incoming sooner rather than later. Don't announce you're going to quit because of "X" - you won't. Well ok, you might but the odds are very good you don't actually mean it. People who really do quit tend to just disappear. By complaining and threatening to quit you just come off as throwing a temper tantrum. Don't believe that just because you're on the faction that dominates in pvp that you are somehow super-skilled and amazing and the other side sucks. Yeah sure the winning side might have better PvPers, or maybe they just work together better, but your side winning a lot has precisely jack to do with you and if you doubt that go play on the other side and see how well you do. "Winning factions" can carry a lot of bad players you'll find. Keep your head screwed on straight. Open-world PvP will never be fair and balanced. Ganking will happen and it will interfere with your gameplay experience. Just accept it or move to a non-PvP server. People will play the auction house/GTN/whatever and will make a ridiculous amount of money doing it. That is almost certainly not an exploit, just where they spend their time in the game. Buying in-game money from a third-party vendor is never a good idea and will almost always get you banned or your account hacked eventually. Being good in PvP doesn't make you good in PvE (or vice versa). PvE nerfs will happen for PvP reasons (and vice versa). Some bugs are easy to fix, some aren't. Asserting that bug "X" taking a long time to fix means all bugs will take that long is ignorant.

It was partly in response to LegionAlpha saying (on page 1): Whether or not it was a troll post, it is a sentiment I've seen echoed on many occasions. My post is meant to express sympathy with their frustration but to ultimately point out in this part of my post: that maybe, given its current direction, that SWTOR isn't the game for them (either at all or at least anymore). Sorry if that was unclear.

They could very easily be working on other projects for Bioware too. The number of developers assigned to the SWTOR project could and almost certainly does fluctuate. So based on a limited amount of resources corporate is willing to allocate to the SWTOR project they are prioritizing the work based on where it will have the most beneficial impact on their revenue stream. If I'm right they (management) has concluded that operations and pvp are less important than new story content. While we are likely to get more of both in the future I would suspect they will probably stay a lower priority than story content; at least based on what we can observe on the outside.

So you couldn't get premium content for free and think this is a legitimate complaint? Turns out I can't get HBO to watch "Game of Thrones" from my cable company without paying for it. In other news water is wet. Bioware gives out an impressively large amount of this game away for free. Some of it is locked behind subscriptions and people are reacting like this is somehow unprecedented and horrible. I'm quite honestly baffled.

As another poster said: I'm a subscriber and remain a subscriber because I enjoy the current benefits associated with it. I will not base my subscription on the perks described but I rather like them. They're neat. Play a chapter as a companion? Yeah I'll do that once. Why not? Free bonus content for doing something I was already doing. Access to KotFE requires a subscription already - so additional KotFE content as a subscriber reward is hardly newsworthy. Not being a subscriber already involves limitations on gameplay (credit limits, character limits, gear limits, etc.) and this is far less severe than that. So really what's the big deal? I ask because to me this is coming off as pure whining that one is not getting something for free.

God yes I would love this.

Variations on "I left when you disappeared" and "they left/disappeared early on in the war" (Qyzen) and "they were reassigned" (Pierce/4X) and so on. Maybe nice, but hardly necessary or relevant.

It's a perk, and one I think I'll enjoy playing at least once. As for the people complaining that HK-55 is "being brought back" - why are you so sure it just isn't another model from the same production line? If I wreck a Mustang it isn't as if I couldn't go buy a new one after all. Why shouldn't HK-55 be the same? Since we've moved away from class-specific stories (sigh) I too would like to see more playable classes added. Knights of Zakuul would be a fun one, as would Droids (everything from astromech to protocol to wardroid to hk to...). I'd love to see "Republic Bounty Hunter" and "Imperial Smuggler". Give them a single chapter's worth of introductory story and make them free for subs and some insane amount of CCs for non-subs and you've got a ready stream of new content to put out.

I agree, veteran rewards would be nice. It would also give people who are currently subscribers something to look forward to if they also reach certain milestones. Different HK unit off the assembly line I should think. He had no backup and his chassis was thoroughly fried.

It isn't very fair to the hard-core raiders and PvPers that Bioware has decided to change directions over the course of the game and decided to focus on story-and-solo content so much. Minus little throways like Pierce/4X and Qyzen there's really only single-player storymode content to work with and on the horizon for the foreseeable future. For me, this is fine. I like the current direction of the game and am enjoying it. However I do understand that for others it sucks and their disappointment makes sense. To them I would say that if you just don't enjoy the story/solo stuff that maybe there are better games out there that cater to your particular interests. There's nothing wrong with that. No game can be everything to everyone. If SWTOR changed to use something like real targeting and more of a twitch-based combat system I'd probably end up leaving for something else. I'd be kind of bummed, but again no game can be everything to everyone and if the game were to start moving in a direction of play I didn't enjoy and away from play I did, I'd vote with my wallet. I'd encourage others to do likewise.

I read the rewards and thought "Neat". I guess we're getting a new HK-55 off the assembly line. I'm happy about that. You can never have enough HK units. We're also getting the chance to do a mission AS HK-55, that's a first and kind of neat. Basically, this is neat. Nice perks for being a subscriber on top of all the existing perks. I like it. We got a release date for chapter 10 and found out about another legacy companion unlock via the Alliance. Also not bad. Nothing bad here. Some stuff is kind of cool.

The following would be nice additions for the AI on companions. Tank: 1.) Anything attacking the player immediately becomes the top of the "to kill" list regardless of what else is going on. 2.) If standing in "the stupid", move out of it. DPS/Heal: 1.) As above but also add: Target priority is always weakest-to-strongest. Heal: 1.) As above but also add: If not in line of sight to player immediately move to be in line of sight.

I did it with diplomacy (mission skill). Level 8 medical supplies. Log in with my biochem toon, send all comps out on those missions, switch toons, play for a bit, switch back to the biochem toon and repeat. Just toss them in legacy storage and pull them out later. Yavin IV would be cheaper, but my way didn't involve pointless trash fights or competing with other players.

Companions are PvE content implicitly. The only PvP they can be used in is open-world PvP and you can easily use the baseline ones you already earned. Push comes to shove you could just get Treek or buy the Akk Dog or the Probe Droid off the GTN and skip 100% of all PvE story and it won't affect your PvP experience at all. But for people who want story, the content to get both current and potentially future companions is gated behind PvP. See the difference? You can skip story if you dislike it, get one companion and your preferred gameplay experience isn't impacted at all. The reverse isn't true. Mind you while I understand the complaint I don't fully share it. I don't mind that a particular companion is gated behind a series of world boss hunts, or warzone matches, or whatnot. I would just like the option to skip that specific companion and the associated quests without it blocking future companions who I might care about.

Pierce at the end of his companion story pledges himself to the Sith Warrior for all time. All companions do some version of this. So in the case of the SW Pierce can say "Look, the Empire's Wrath owns me and wants me back, you tell him no". Everyone else, while important, doesn't have the same kind of claim that the SW has and as a result has to "prove themselves" in a way the SW doesn't. Similar story for the Trooper I expect. War hero leader of Havoc Squad is back from being captured by the EE and is reforming his squadron. Someone in the command chain probably felt well disposed enough to the Trooper for their past heroics to accommodate the "request". But who does this smuggler or jedi think they are exactly? Prove you're a friend to the Republic chump.

I don't know about requiring PvP, skipping that quest is a perk of being the class that originally had that companion. It isn't as if we're forever limited to only playing one class after all. Sure my Sith Juggernaut got Pierce back easy as you please but my Sith Assassin and my Operative both had to do some hoop jumping. The Assassin got Xalek back with a "kneel before your true master" whereas my Juggernaut had to beat Xalek stupid to get the same result. And so forth. What really needs to happen is the ability to decline the companion right up front without bothering with the longer/more involved quests. If one of my characters thinks Qyzen isn't worth the time I should be able to decline him without that serving to block me from being able to consider Lokin. THAT is the design flaw we should be complaining about? Don't want the companion or just don't want to do the quest? Cool, you should be able to skip it without issues. But gating other companions behind a companion (or quest) you'd rather not deal with? That stinks.

What Musco said in your quote block was... "Not likely" is not synonymous with "never will". Furthermore there's no way to get rid of the quest or alert without completing it. I'll slog through the PvP requirement, a little at a time. No I won't get gear. Yes I will be sub-par as a result. Kindly direct complaints to the dev team. I'd be quite content to be able to refuse this mission, clear the alert, and not have future content blocked off from me. I have plenty of companions, missing out on Pierce (or 4X) will hardly be game-ending for me. However I don't want a quest slot permanently taken up and I don't want to have to learn to live with a forever-blinking alliance alert icon.

I want customizable ships, not planetary strongholds. The former actually makes sense that it could be available anywhere. I suppose I could always create a guild and get myself a ship that way, but that seems more than a bit klugey a way to do it. Besides, I don't necessarily want or need something the size of a capital ship.

Star Wars meets Deliverance? On a slightly less homophobic note I would enjoy more romance options - in particular I would really like it if we could romance multiple companions at one time. Worked out ok for Fallout.

What about slave-dudes? I'll take one of each and have them dancing on platforms next to my ship's holo transmitter.

The measure of "OP" is now not being at risk of dying to level 14 content? Really? You're playing a high-armor character with a healer companion and either A) lots of durability or B) lots of damage and you're stunned you're at no risk of dying? BHs are the only class that can reasonably expect to be in full heavy armor (if a genuine newbie) at level 14. Sith Warriors don't get it till they pick the Juggernaut advanced class. So basically the mob damage has to be geared around what most people can handle and in the low-teens you're playing a class with a baked-in survival advange. And not being at risk of dying surprises you?

I have a sneaking suspicion that "dual personality" characters will probably not be back. This includes Khem Val and Jaesa Wilsaam. Basically it means for each "persona" a character can have they have very different story impacts. Romance arcs impact personal story but are unlikely to have much of a larger impact, which is why we all can pick who we want to romance pretty freely. But the core persona is a much more substantial thing. Dark-side Jaesa would be having very differently than Light-side Jaesa. Furthermore, the second persona is likely only really applicable to a small fraction of players of the particular class that had that companion before. Could it be worked around? Yes. But I'm thinking that in the grand scheme of things and everything else BW has to work on it would be, at best, for a side character acquired via KoToR-style dialogue scenes as was true for Pierce, Xalek, and Talos.

Please post a video of you guys doing this. You are making some extraordinary claims, I'd like to see it in action. Particularly since my own experiences would contradict the "companions are OP" claim you are making.