It's several things But most importantly the companion Nerf made the broken healing script, and broken tank damage mitigation even more evident , making some encounters impossible for some Rather then fixing the bugs the developers without extensive testing nuked companion heals by 75% , and akthough this had little impact where characters natural damage mitigatin is rather high , it was disastrous in the harder content As for the reaction by the Devs They have seen since the patch hit thousands of sub cancels, and a significant drop in user activity , which is also in part due because many users could not log in because of bugged patching The issue here is that they have messed up priorities , and the fixing of bugs that have significant game play impacts are often rather low

i think what got lost in the conversation was the fact that when the last patch hit we lost our pocket tank / healers that allow us to take on challenging content , like the Heroic Mobs in the Rak Tunnels ,and the Gree Event , I might have spent all of my early time in game in Heal spec , but when they nerfed Healer DPS it became boring , and slow beyond belief to do any of the normal daily activity with my companion in Tank spec, The silver lining of that nerf so long ago was that I just turned Healing to the companion and changed to DPS / Tank specs What the Nerf did , was force players to go back to Heal & Tank Spec because both of these stances are either broken. Healing because the script is broken. Tanking because it has no mitigation. I would much prefer that the fix was that Companions were at 90% of the average armor / weapon rating of a player , and with rank 50 they could reach 100%. its a simple fix that would give players a companion thats unpar with their gear and level

Your level : 65 Roughly Average Item Rating :216 - 220 Discipline Operative Healing Companion : Scorpio Companion role : Tried Heals . Tank and DPS Companion Influence level 37 Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) Yavin, CZ , SF H Voss and Bel Your personal experience while playing this content : Experienced Using Scorpio in Tank , Heals , and DPS , all seemed normal when doing Yavin & CZ , but to be honest thats much easier content then a SF HM In the HM , I changed form doing Operative DPS to Operative Healing Scorpio as a DPS seemed normal , though far more easy to kill then before 4.0 , it was as if she was naked and just ha Hit points , as a Tank , it was pretty worthless , other then the ability to grab agro because there seemed to be no damage mitigation The worst stance , was Heals when the comp just shut down and contributed nothing at all when we reach the final boss figtht of SF HM VOSS , , and as the Boss spamed heals faster then we could get our interrupts to come off cool down (2 of us) our companions both in heal spec just stood there until they died in the end we found ourselves needing a Player doing Heals , and Tanking to defeat the final boss , With the Companion Tank and Heals being broken it makes game play more then a challenge if you can not locate players to fill these 2 roles

And here is where we agree . Its a cluster of a problem , because , Companion Healing was , and still is horribly bad with them taking long coffee breaks between healing , This was masked by the fact that they were able to do a certain level of burst healing , but with the changes this is gone , and one of the last things that can be done in game are now gone , Before 4.0 , You could pug a Tactical , you would be crazy to do that any longer because of the inabiltiy to complete with most groups You had a mid range HM , the Classics , again somehting you could do , but those are all gone You used to be able to farm some easy credits in game , but all the mobs had their drops nerfed by 90% , You were even for 2 weeks able to farm soem Planet Heroics ,(weekly only) but again nerfed if you were used to running them with a Healing comp , meaning they take a lot more time then they used to , Now , understand , My game focus is normally Operations , But for when your not in Ops its nice to be able to do other things , and Bioware has made the game increasingly unplayable , or at least where the reward matched the effort extended Its why so many are saying ,, Farewell this week

yea , thinkiing the game is heading to the trash heap over this because , In the posting by the devs of what their game expectation was , they did not bother to state what testing if any the did to suppot the 75% reduction in Compation healing, which took it down to a fraction of the 3.0 This means that any change , and if one were to happen will not be for at least 2 - 4 weeks , and then again for only token amounts 10 - 15 % from the nerfed levels, I really just wish they had lied , and said the nerf was more extreme then they had intended , and that a significat fix to restore Healing to 75% of the prior levels was in place to be release this week. But thats not how it played out , so will enjoy the game until the sub ends , cause the game is heading for the trash heap due to this mistake by the devs

For those that wanted a Companion Nerf , and have been spamming the forum for the last 2 weeks , and contunue to do so , , get that I agreed that somehting should have been done , BUT The level of the Nerf , and how it was slipped in without any conversation , and how it only became known just prior to the patch has raised a Red Flag , for many but there are other issues 1st , How the game Patches , this is something that will not change because its a key selling point to EA , and how they want to monetize the result being we have a horrific patching process that often creates the wrong settings , and requires players to download the entire game several times with each patch , this is not changing , and some players are just moving on , and ending their subs. 2nd The bugs . not the minor bugs but ones that make game play near impossible , or so problematic it interferes at a significant level when it comes to their enjoying the game , again , players just giving up and leaving. 3rd The Healing nerf , and what that means to players that want to solo or 2 man , and not have to do the healing themselves , and the impact on how quickly they can farm a planet heroic , and or any of the content in game. Because prior to the launch of 4.0, there were lots of things that one could do to earn credits , and or get the items one might want to farm. But with 4.0 , we really just have Operations , Planet Heroics , and Events , With the Companion Healing changes , unless you have teamed up a Player Healing with another Player its either going to go slow or painful , at least when we had decent Healing Companions in 3.- this was not an issue , But with these changes its going to be a lot more painful , and time consuming to do missions that earn just north of 10k credits , which is absurd -------------------------------- K , my expectation at this point , The nerf crowd will continue to shout , and yell , and ignore the data being show them (sort of like peeps yelling over others trying to tell them that man is having an impact on the worlds climate) That Bioware / EA will not make the basic changes to things like patching because their bosses dont want to lose the revenue stream. That the Nerf will stay or just get a minor adjustment at best, and far to late to correct the mess that was made of the game when the patch hit Tuesday. ----------------------------------- My plan , enjoy the game until my sub runs out , and then head on to some thing else , with the option to come back in the Spring , that is if the game is still bothering to release updates at that time, because Movie or not , I expect that what ever influx they expected in December to be heavily countered by the huge sums of ill will that Bioware/ EA cultivated this week

For those that want to Yell at the top of their lungs at how the level of nerf was needed and only the lazy inept will have an issue , ,, Does that really explain the massive population decrease the game has experienced since the patch hit , just looking at Harb & Berg , though feel free to check out others , the game has lost a huge percentage of the population that had been active at the start of the week ,, http://www.torstatus.net/the-harbinger/history/7d#!/the-harbinger/history/7d http://www.torstatus.net/the-harbinger/history/7d#!/begeren-colony/history/7d I dont even know if Bioware can correct this mess given how the Bugs, Nerfs , and Patching disaster have destroyed what good will they had establised over the last few weeks

actually , the population drop only happened when the update hit , you can see the 7 day impact here http://www.torstatus.net/the-harbinger/history/7d#!/begeren-colony/history/7d http://www.torstatus.net/the-harbinger/history/7d#!/the-harbinger/history/7d

I am not talking about Single Player , but rather SF Heroics that you might do with a partner , or events where you do with a partner or a small group The issue with the Star Fort Heroic, Gree & Rak Bosses is that they will now require a player with Healing rather then a companion to fill that role , The nerf was to extreme that is unless they are going to reduce the difficulty level by 50% of the bosses that now require a player healer

Pagy because your assumption of it not being valid would be wrong Like I said , shout this down , I get that's what you do , but it will not change the fact that your small vocal group might get your way , but the end result will just be a shuttered game

Out of a poll of over 400 players , only 10 % support the change 80 % do not Only 10 % were neutral Again the small vocal group spamming here can shout this down as you already have , But if you think having a Budget will make sure the game continues is enough you are wrong , because part of the budget would be the revenue numbers that will now be a fraction of what had been expected In truth the entire discussion might be moot, and the damage done so significant that the community does not recover

Actually the poll of 400+ players showed that only 10% of the player base supports the change The healing data has been posted in dozens of threads For the small vocal group that want the Nerf to stand , you can spam the forums , shout down others all you want , bug in the end it just means the game will need to shutter before the end of next year

I know that companion healing was going to be reduced , but now it's about 1/3 of what it was in 3.0 , this is clearly a bug that needs to be fixed

There are a very vocal group that like the direction of the game, and they represent about 10% of the paying customer base. But with 80% of the community ready to leave the game because of the bugs, patching issues, and the companion Nerf that reduced companion healing to a 1/3 of what it was even back in 3.0, Would it surprise anyone if the game finds itself shuttered before next Summer

Actually u are wrong, only about 10% of the population are in favor of the Nerf , so in truth it would be yourself that are part of what is a very small but very vocal group that spams the forums with your opinion

80% of the votes are not happy out of about 400 votes

We knew they were removing gear, so many of us spent many hours, days. Weeks , to get our passive buffs maxed For the 1st, few weeks it looked like the time in game made sense , but when they nerfed companion heals to a fraction of the 3.0 levels , it was proof of how out if touch the producers of the game are with the bulk of the community At this point most of us should just consider cutting our loses and moving on

It does not matter , the producers of the game have taken it down a path where it probably now need to close by next Summer due to the community being to small to support updates

Some love the sledge hammer nerf of companions , and others think it was absurd , So , why dont we all just post our thought on Metacritic , so its clear to all what the divide is , also ,, cool view here about a players take on the Healing Nerf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP1HX8jaNVQ&feature=youtu.be

its clear that major changes need to be made in a short amount of time due to the sledge hammer of a nerf made to Companion Healing , Taking heals down to 25% of 4.0 , and less then 33% of where they were with 3.0 , is just absurd A Massive buff needs to be done and quickly with an appology from the EA / Bioware staff due to this absurd mistake on their part

The Truth , We have a number of Elite Forum Trolls that don't care how the changes have effected the balance of the community The neff might have made the game play more fun for some , but its going to result in a player population reversal that will lead to an early ending of the game due to it not being profitable due to the much smaller population. So keep insulting, and shouting down those that say the nerf was to strong, say you are better off if they leave , In the end it wont matter, because come the Spring the game will begin to shut down due to not being profitable

Buff Companion Healing ,, by 200% thats still less then were it was before 4.0

yup , its going slow for a lot of peeps , know some thats only at 73% and they started 24 hrs ago

Yup and thats the nail on the head , Was this Uber buff planned , as a way to reel in players , and was the sledge hammer of a nerf planned to so it would take longer to get the content done , It sounds like something a peep in Marketing would put forth to help monetize this game

So who else is keaving due to the state of the game, or are on a count down based on when their runs out Also Do not forget to post on metacritic what you currently think of the gameI