This is a horrible change for those of us who play predominantly solo and only dabble in low-stress group content. Please reconsider. EDIT: As I figure it is helpful to expand on blind criticism. I'm perfectly happy for people who play master modes and nightmare ops to get more and faster loot than I. But as a casual player with command rank 300 I feel like I've hit a brick wall for gear advancement - the grind is horrific for me to improve my 240 gear and I have very little control. Crafting materials gave me (and, as mentioned above, small guilds) a way forward that has now been choked. So, instead of this change, perhaps you could simply revert to granting refined isotope stabs. in Vet flashpoints and in master modes have one drop per player. Happiness all round. It's not like we're going back to 4.0 levels of quick gearing - my mind boggles when I think how long it is going to take me to gear alts :-( At the moment, when I actually do get an evening without kids where I can do an operation with my guild I just feel embarrassed by my gear. I'm a subscriber. I'm happy to pay for the game. Please let me keep playing it my way.

Shorter content is a good thing as well - the Uprisings are good in that direction, and I really liked our "one boss raid" with Tython. Would it even be possible to have "single boss challenges?" Like, we fight the third boss from ravagers - we port straight in without the trash - fight the boss, claim the loot (obv. could be less loot to compensate for easier experience), raid ended. For those of us that can't handle a long period of play this would be a great way to get involved without, you know, falling over. An arena fight. Go to the arena, fight a selected (or randomly selected) raid boss, win, fall over, take your pain killers and go to bed. All round win! Great thread by the way.

As a player with disabilities I really appreciate easier and solo mode content. I love to raid and play content with other people, but on my bad days I'm a liability to a group and I know it. Having group content I can do with people where if I spaz out for a bit it won't matter is pretty great. On that subject, it would be great if they made it possible to summon companions in story mode raids and sort out solo mode for all of the flashpoints. As my health has degenerated over time it has helped me enormously that the team have opened up the game, made OP companions and soloable heroics and all that sort of thing, so I can keep my Star Wars fantasy going while life gets less, well, fantastic ^^. More choices and ways to play are always good. Oh, and customisable interfaces have really helped! If they could continue working on that (I'd like to be able to make some icons REALLY big; I'd like to be able to edit pop up windows (crafting reports, etc).) [i am now wondering if posting this post means I will be instantly kicked from group finder from now on! I'm not always rubbish, bad days and good days, you know how it is.)

I'm going to throw in my answer to this one, if you don't mind. First - once you complete KOTFE chapters just playing the game doesn't increase companion influence, with the exception of killing the extra bosses in Star Fortress and, apparently, doing warzones for Pierce after you've recruited him (I guess I need to take a Sith through KOTFE story.) So it mostly becomes about gifts. Second - Why grind them up to 50 at all? Because, in the sadly limited conceptualisation of the alliance, those little bars are the only objective you have. That's ok, like a lot of us Star Wars fans I have an excess of imagination; even those little changes to dialogue are enough for me to tap into the idea that my alliance is growing. I don't know man, what do you do in an MMO that isn't for the most part filling up purple bars and applying imagination? Third - I confess I'm a tiny bit worried that companion affection will impact the outcome of the story. I mean, it probably won't (because, you know, effort), but I don't want T7 to end up dead because I didn't give him enough shinies. Bioware will probably chicken out for fear of alienating their players (and they may be right to do so), but if the only thing that will save him is 10,000 holoviewers, than that's what I'm going to get him. Finally - I'm not sure I want it to be faster (although, again, I imagine plenty of people do). But I would like it to be more fun and have more ways to do it. Why kill a monster who then drops a gift that I then stand still and give to my companion so that they get influence when I could just kill the monster and get the influence directly? Shouldn't my companions be influenced more by me doing things of which they approve? Why isn't my companion saying "Dude, what the hell am I going to do with this toaster here in the middle of this Imperial Base!?" I like that gifts drop and we can trade them and we can give them to our companions, but it shouldn't be the only thing. Like I've said before, levelling feels pretty good, but when you get to Endgame, story doesn't give influence and you suddenly have a million faceless companions with hungry mouths. That's my £5 anyway. Personally (and I know you weren't talking to me), I wasn't a supporter of the companion nerf - I've played with enough people who struggle with the game to think that it's great that the new companions let them see more of the content (same for solo mode). Meanwhile I get owned enough doing Hard Mode/occasional Nightmares to be perfectly happy that challenge is available. Apparently standing in the circles is bad. I really need to work on that!

Hi SootyTX. I think I'm broadly in agreement with what you say here, and it's interesting to consider treating it more as a reputation grind than a traditional influence one. I do think we're concerned with slightly different fundamental issues. There certainly are a range of questions regarding companion gifts, grind and pacing development of our alliance so that it is neither too quick or too slow. The key question for me is whether this experience could be more fun, and give more options for how we play. Personally, I do like raising companion influence. I don't really care how much more powerful it makes them (although I'll take the power gladly). I like filling up those bars as well, and I don't even mind grinding to do it. And I know different players will feel differently, which is cool. I'd just like the process of gaining influence to be better integrated into play, rather than me stopping every couple of minutes to pay off my companions with random shinies on a stupid 3 second cooldown bar. I get enough repetitive button clicking from my rotations. It doesn't bother me if other people are quite happy doing that, but I'd like to have some other options. It's worth noting that if you go only for the top end gifts (the pink grade 6 ones) you still have to click something like 180 times to get level 50 (and spend more than 4000 common data crystals, although this isn't really a question of cost). So this isn't only a problem for cheapskates (although it's a bigger problem for cheapskates). It just feels so artificial. The process does feel much better when levelling, with the mixture of influence coming from conversations, quests and companion gifts - I can just play how I want, no longer worry about annoying Scourge (as another poster commented), and throw in the occasional gift as a pick them up. But the experience completely changes once you hit endgame and conversations stop giving influence. Complete KOTFE and it feels like your companions just become gift guzzling bot skins. A gift cap in combination with influence from other activities may well be a good way to go, like event reputations, that's a good idea. Really you'd need to dig into the metrics and find something that let you progress steadily, which is I guess a job for someone with access to the metrics! Thanks for the thoughts. I don't know what the answer is (hence the thread). I'm just sure there must be a more fun, immersive way of building companion influence once the game runs out of story.

Fantastic. Yes, there should be more of that. Our companions should notice and care about what we do. After all, choices matter. Right? Right???

Isn't that only until you recruit them (ie. it is a quality of the recruitment quest, like handing in trophies to Qyzen)? After you recruit them, such that you can actually summon and fight with them, don't they stop getting influence like this? I really hope I'm wrong, because if they do then this is great!

Thanks for all the interesting and funny responses to my OP. I’m particularly glad that some of you laughed! I thought I’d reply to some of the excellent points made. Why bother raising companion level if it is boring? My issue is immersion not difficulty. Of course, we don’t NEED to level companion influence. I’m lucky enough to play in a friendly, active raiding guild (Usual Suspects on Red Eclipse) so I’m well geared, I have most of the legacy unlocks, blah blah, blah blah. This thread absolutely is not about companion power levels and game difficulty. It is about feeling an immersive connection between my activity and the results of my activity. This game is a story-based heroic power-fantasy, and part of that story is improving your companions and building a team that can take on the Eternal Empire. So I want to max out my companions influence. It’s part of the story. That’s my choice (I have a dark-side character who lives to aggravate and couldn’t care less about companion influence, that works as well.) But my silly-old JK main wants to make friends and save the galaxy. That means raising influence. The problem is that the way that I develop that influence distances me from the story. Someone pointed out that I could collect up gifts from heroics and trade them on the GTN to give gifts to develop the companions. Yes, I can, and of course, I do. But what really should be happening is that the little droid who stood by my side when I fought the beast gains influence, not the fat wookie back on the ship polishing the skull of a monster he never saw. Yesterday, defeated by Koth’s annoying voice, I stuck The Empire Strikes Back on the television, put a huge stack of gifts on my action bar, and hit the “4” button repeatedly until the gifts ran out and the movies was over. I turned off the sound and did not look at the screen. That’s not fun. That’s not immersive. It is inductive of repetitive strain injury. I’m not saying get rid of gifts. I like gifts. But I want influence to grow from gameplay. There is a big difference between how companion affection works a) While you are levelling/progressing story and b) Once you have cleared KOTFE and are in Endgame. I’ve been levelling a Sith Warrior alt from nothing post 4.0 and the experience is very different to pre 4.0. It’s much better. The combination of the gift drops and conversation/quest influence gains means that influence grows fast. My baby Sith hasn’t completed chapter 1 and all his companions all have more than level 30 influence (apart from Nico Okarr. Vette’s getting all those Underworld Goods buddy, you get back to mixing cocktails in the rec room). But (unless this is a bug) once you have cleared KOTFE and are in endgame then all the influence gains from conversations and quests disappear. If I roll a brand new JK and take him and T7 through Corsucant then T7 gains influence from the exploration and world quests. If I take my post KOTFE JK and his T7 back to the same planet to do the same missions this T7 gains no influence. Post KOTFE T7 no longer cares if I space the engineers from the Esselles (heartless droid). Companions change after completion of the KOTFE chapters to stop gaining influence from pre-KOTFE content. So (unless this is a bug) if you have completed all the story content then the ONLY way to gain influence after you have completed KOTFE is to give gifts and kill the bonus bad guys in Star Fortress. And give more gifts. Lots and lots and lots of gifts. Gift stacks may not be the droid we’re looking for. I'm not sure being able to hand over multiple gifts at once is the best solution. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve wished it were possible to dump all the gifts on my avaricious little parasites in one go and be done with it. Equally, I do remember how bad it was at launch. Which leads me to believe that gift stacks, while probably better than what we have at the moment, are a cure for a symptom not the disease. With gift stacks I’m never going to even take annoying-Koth for a walk. I’ll run around the galaxy with T7 until I have a big stack of credits, buy all the gifts, summon Koth, dump all the gifts on the 3 second timer, then put him away again. Should my JK have 50 influence with a companion he wouldn’t recognise in a pub? It would be nice to have the option to blow whole stacks at once. I think people should be able to play how they want. And throwing a whole stack at once would be better than hitting my gift button while watching the television. But I suspect, after I’ve dumped all the gifts and my companions all have level 50, I’ll be left with the rather empty feeling that I didn’t really earn it and I don’t know who these people are. I’d like to have a way to grow influence directly through gameplay that feels like it would grow influence. All that being said, if Bioware can’t be bothered, sure, let me dump gift stacks please! Ideas for influence gains associated with doing things other than giving gifts There were some great ideas knocking about in this thread; influence gains for doing things on worlds associated with characters; influence gains for completing missions and heroics. Thanks for sharing. Let's hope Bioware read them. I kind-of wish Lieutenant Pierce and crazy-propaganda-bot continued gaining influence when you played warzones after you have recruited them. I thought that was a nice touch, and would like to see some stuff attached to GSF as well. Not gated content, because I appreciate not everyone wants to PvP, just another way to gain influence than gift spamming. If we do things they like they like us more. That being said, I still worry about the disconnect between companions with whom you gain influence and those you use. I’d love it to be the case that the companions you spend the most time with organically become those that have the highest influence. But there’s no reason we can’t have our actions impacting both our active and inactive companions. Let's give our companions dynamic profiles. Let's have many different ways to earn their respect. Imagine: a steady but slow stream of influence building with your alliance as you complete warzones, kill bad guys and save the galaxy. It sounds more fun than bribing HK with ration packs! It sounds, almost, dare I say it, fantastic!

Can Companion affection be shifted away from endlessly showering them with gifts? Because frankly it is immersion breaking and gets on my wick. I'm not averse to a little grinding. Heck, I've played JRPGS, I'm not averse to a lot of grinding. But companion influence should principally come from a) story choices and b) spending time doing things with our companions. At the moment story choices are out of the window. I've finished chapter 9. Anything before KOTFE no longer grants influence. It's over. That's sad but, hey, I can deal. So, as best I can tell, the most economic path from 0->50 is 6061 Rank 1 Greens followed by 5326 rank 2 greens making 11, 387 times Koth has told me how fantastic it is that I have refrained from inserting said ammunition cannister somewhere he doesn't want it inserting. No, Scorpio, I am no longer very kind. I am now insane. Jaesa I am not the best. I am the master-pimp and you are all money grabbing mercenary gits. Companion affection is inverse to player affection. Instead, why not follow up on the mechanism in the Star Fortress - grant companion affection when we do something together? Not a lot; for instance, 5 influence for a silver mob, 20 influence for a gold, 50 for a champion? Maybe grant another 20 for completing a mission together? I'm sure there are flaws (and better suggestions, please make them in response) - but at least this way I would have the highest influence with the companions I have built the most memories and had the most adventures with, rather than the one who randomly got the most frequent rewards from my Underworld Trading missions before I MURDERED THEM WITH THEIR LUXURY HOLOSPHERE! Anyone else have a better idea?

Thanks for the helpful guidance - I've started a new character and I'm wandering around the Sith Academy with a weird sense of deja vu!

Hello chaps, I first played this game when it came out, and stopped shortly before the FTP changes because they server merged and I lost my character name (which was kind of immersion killing!) With the new movie coming I'm been feeling the need for a Star Wars fix. I suspect a few things have changed - any suggestions for things I should look out for / things to try / stuff I definitely shouldn't do? Also, I absolutely cannot remember the personal stories of my level 50s (was level 50 the maximum level? I can't even remember that?) Should I be restarting new characters or is there another way to be reminded what went before?