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Community Q&A – May 11th, 2012 Blog Discussion


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I didn't think much of the response to Deewe's question on locked companions.

 

The actual content of the reply was reasonable - you want each companion to be special & stay true to your concept. I can strongly empathise with this... but...

 

<snip>

 

This guy gets it.

 

For pretty much any character that isn't in heal-spec, the choice of which companion to bring is only a choice until the Healer companion is earned. After that, the vast majority of classes will find they they are basically self-gimping or self-slowing by bringing something other than their healer. Also, there are 2 tanks and 2 DPS companions, but only 1 healer which makes the choice feel more locked.

 

I recently started leveling my Warrior, thanks to the species unlocks. Leveling was slow in the beginning, picked up when I got Quinn, and then I decided that I'd like to use Jaesa as my 'permanent' companion, both because she's my Apprentice and my Romance. Lo and Behold, my leveling slowed down to the point of being almost non-existent. I tried various different methods, letting Jaesa take initial aggro, then taunting it away from her to share the incoming damage; taking it myself and using what little CC I have to limit the incoming damage; Extreme cooldown use; I even went through and swapped from Vengeance to Immortal to see if the extra survivability helped. It didn't. I was falling against Strong enemies, even some larger groups of standards.

 

So I swapped back to Quinn. What happened? Suddenly, fights that were ending in either defeat or near death became simple. Groups that would leave me and Jaesa at 10-20% hp each were now defeated with Quinn at 100% and myself at 80-90%.

 

That's not the matter of a simple choice of which companion to use. That's the matter of choosing if I want to live, or suffer a defeat at every group. The choice of leveling simply, or virtually not at all. The choice of no repairs, or constant repairs.

 

That's not a choice at all.

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Fine i got rerouted here to post about the Q&A so here it is..

 

Stop exspecting everyone to keep hanging on to soons and maybe's and we working on its. With no more updates and information given. Why dont you guys and girls at bioware stop panzy footing around and answer the real issue questions that so many are asking. Stop with the general drone answers and give a definiative clear answer.

 

Stop hideing behind the fluff and flash and treating people like they arnt smart enough to understand your playing cloak and dagger. Instead of answering their questions. Stop lying to us and yourselves. Transfers should not take 3 or more months to implement !! And if it does its either incompetence or intentional.

 

Ranked PVP should not have been hyped for 3 friggen months and then pulled at last minute and exspect us to believe it was a bug you didnt already know about before the day of launch.

 

 

 

Start prioratizing the issues that is killing your game and making it harder and hardcer to find a reason to continue to be loyal to developers that seems to say screw you at every turn.

 

Start keeping the promises you make rather than coming out with half of what you claim and then saying it was a mistake in the patch notes. And if it is that many mistakes being made then maybe you need to consider a better means of communication among your staff.

 

Start being the company many of us have looked up to and been loyal to for years now. Because in your current state you are quickly killing those loyalties.

 

And i dont reraly care wether people agree with me or they dont at this point im just getting sick of the half truths and utter foot dragging thats been going on with your teams.

 

So put up or man up and be the company we all know you can and have been. And stop exspecting us to keep blindly stumbling thru dead servers and missing content/bugfixes ...End of story and rant.

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I leveled my juggernaut with vette cause I liked her. My Guardian rolled with Kira until I got Scourge at which point I switched to dps spec. Never had any problems with a single fight. In fact, out of my 6 50s, the only char I leveled with a healer was my assassin after I got talos but you don't get him before hoth, I used andronikos before I got talos.

 

Merc > Gault, later Skadge. Sniper > Kaliyo, later Scorpio. Jugger > Vette/Jaessa. Guardian > Kira > Scourge. Sage > Qyzen then the Soldier dude and finally Nadia. Assassin > Khem till I got Andronikos, later Talos.

 

And no, I didn't overlevel the quests at any point by more than 1 or 2 levels. I really don't get how people can possibly find it hard to play without a healer. A tank companion is prollie the fastest because you can just unsummon/summon them after every fight in few secs while indoors, almost instantly by mounting/dismounting so you don't have to regen at all.

Edited by Jandi
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Every other Bioware game with companions allows you to:

A) Bring more than 1 companion with you at a time

B) Adjust (within reason) the skills of your companions.

 

TOR does neither of these, meaning that if I want to bring a Healer, I have exactly one option. And with certain classes, the Healer companion has a story that doesn't mesh with the playstyle. The most egregious example being the Sith Warrior and Quinn.

 

More specifically, both the Inquisitor and Warrior are given the choice of either bringing their Healer companion or of drastically increasing their chances of defeat, should they choose to bring their Apprentice.

 

Options to solve include:

A) Allow limited customization of Companions, similar to the skill points of DragonAge or KOTOR, possibly through a Companion Talent Tree.

B) Allowing multiple companions to be used at any time. 2 companions at minimum, 3 would be ideal for Flashpoints and Heroics.

C) Create multiple versions of each companion, similar to Jaesa. The companions personal story could change based on the decision, to more appropriately mesh with the players choices.

 

Which is why i wish this game was just a very very big single player game.

 

Take out all the side quests and just put in the story class missions and update every few months or so for a fee. Game would be so much better

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Not a bad Q&A, nice to get confirmation about Alacrity for my Smuggler.

 

I was glad to see they chose the question about Companion roles, but disappointed by the reply. :( Bioware, is my own character not also a unique personality with her own skillset an abilities? Because I can change her role is I want to. Yet, Companions are so special and unique that they can only fill one very specific role?

 

Granted, not every character/advanced class can have more than one role. But most can, and I do not understand why at least some companions cannot have this option as well. Especially considering that Companion "classes" aren't exactly the same as player advanced classes -- for example, Qyzen Fess is an Aim-based Companion, yet he uses a tech staff and is melee, unlike Corso and Kaliyo and many Troopers.

 

I don't think it would be unreasonable (either story-wise or from the gear perspective) to allow, for example:

Quinn as DPS -- I'm pretty sure the guy is an Imperial Officer that likes to kill enemies, not a career medic.

Khem Val as DPS -- I don't think this needs explaining, Khem is a big scary monster. And he doesn't strike me as the "protective" sort, anyway.

Akaavi Spar as a tank -- a heavily armored, honorable Mandalorian who considers you a friend would surely do this job well.

 

On the other hand, some Companions might be more limited either due to their personality/nature (I think Doc would stick to healing, y'know?) or due to the limitations of their "advanced class" (Zenith would probably be up for tanking, but not with medium armor and a sniper rifle!). Not sure if the latter actually matters, though.

 

So I get what you mean, Bioware, but I think Companions could retain their unique personalities and histories while still having some flexibility. I'm not talking about having Tharan tank or turning Broonmark into a healer, or anything crazy like that. ;)

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Nothing really interesting there.

 

Compaion answer seems strange to me. I find that I am often forced to take a compion because I need a Healer or I need a DPS. Then to advance the compaion story arc I am forced to make choices which they approve of. Not to mention BH aside I every class I have played has wanted to throw at least one of his compaions out of the air lock. In every other BW game I can think of I can pick and choose compaions to work with my main character in TOR I am forced to take a compaion I might not like.

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The reason (as stated in the blog) is so that we don't end up with a Q&A with the same questions asked over and over and the same responses from the devs about features coming soon. We've taken your feedback and we wanted to be able to choose new questions that result in in-depth answers from our developers. This way, we can accumulate questions for two weeks and choose from there.

 

We'll definitely monitor community reaction to this and then decide from there if we want to continue to do weekly or bi-weekly Q&As.

 

Its once every two weeks becuase week after week they are getting progressivly less effort in the answers from those writing them.. im just reading wanting to reply back at each saying.. how about you pick some hard questions and stop using the copy paste answers.

 

You know the reason they ask the same questions over and over is that there questions never get answered right ?

 

Seriously 15 pages of answers and you say you cant get any in depth questions from it... how about you read some of them...

Edited by RichyYoung
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o) Saddened by the fact not all gear can be Reverse Engineered, yet. I've seen some stuff on the GTN that I would love to get, but it's unmoddable. Here's my fingers crossed.?[/b]

 

I long for the day when white/green etc gear can be RE'd. I belive I heard a birdie mention that all gear has orange versions. Wondering what the purpose of anything other than orange is at this point. What's with the color system when orange is king?

 

birdie was a little tipsy.

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I long for the day when white/green etc gear can be RE'd. I belive I heard a birdie mention that all gear has orange versions. Wondering what the purpose of anything other than orange is at this point. What's with the color system when orange is king?

 

birdie was a little tipsy.

 

Clearly the underlying technology needs to be worked on if currently its pushing the limits allowing you to re campaign AND black hole.. nooooo not 8 extra schematics... ./crash...

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I leveled my juggernaut with vette cause I liked her. My Guardian rolled with Kira until I got Scourge at which point I switched to dps spec. Never had any problems with a single fight. In fact, out of my 6 50s, the only char I leveled with a healer was my assassin after I got talos but you don't get him before hoth, I used andronikos before I got talos.

 

Merc > Gault, later Skadge. Sniper > Kaliyo, later Scorpio. Jugger > Vette/Jaessa. Guardian > Kira > Scourge. Sage > Qyzen then the Soldier dude and finally Nadia. Assassin > Khem till I got Andronikos, later Talos.

 

And no, I didn't overlevel the quests at any point by more than 1 or 2 levels. I really don't how people can possibly find it hard to play without a healer. A tank companion is prollie the fastest because you can just unsummon/summon them after every fight in few secs while indoors, almost instantly by mounting/dismounting so you don't have to regen at all.

 

Interesting, some questions:

 

To what extent did you act as the healer (particularly on the sage)? Even if you weren't heal spec'd on those toons capable of healing, did you find yourself tossing out heals on strong+ mobs? Were you a tank spec on any of those toons (I'm thinking of the Jugger in particular)?

 

Your pattern definitely seems to be start out with DPS companion & then switch to a tank companion in the 35-40 range.

 

I agree that a tank is a potential option over a healer, but I think the vast majority will choose a healer & many will feel locked into it.. To my mind it's a question of faster-kills-higher-risk (tank) or slower-kills-guaranteed-survival (healer).

 

I don't regard DPS companions as a serious option for anyone except a heal/tank-capable toon or someone in a group. They simply don't do high enough DPS against anything challenging (level 30+, mobs at level or higher) to account for the lessened survivability, in my experience.

 

As a Deception Assassin I've been going with Khem all the way because that's what I've got used to + my character & Khem have similar interests (feeding him jedi). As Deception I like being able to use maul, so I stun to break up damage & rely on superior DPS + force cloak to get me out of trouble. That said, I definitely encountered fights pre-Hoth that I could have done if I had a healer but couldn't do without one.

 

If I didn't have force cloak on my Assassin, I probably would've used a healer to stop that once-in-a-while death though - I intensely dislike dying & try to keep it to once every 10 levels at most.

 

On my other characters I've always used a healer for safety (plus they make great OT's), or else have been duoing the solo content with a friend.

Edited by Lakhesis
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I think legacy is suppose to benefit the companion issues. Seriously I have about +250 Presence from legacy buffs only and I have decent gear mainly some level 50 blues and battlemaster gear and I can farm easy with Nadia my Melee DPS.

 

Also the +250 really helps when leveling a new character. I really don't even need my healer or tank companion.

Edited by Aricus
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It was really sad to hear that Huttball was designed to allow the ball carrier to use sprint and leap. I think there is a big difference between what the makeup of teams are and who actually scores the majority of the time. What do those numbers say? It would be better that all ball carriers move at the same speed because a lot of us are in pugs. We don't control the makeup so not only could we not have a healer but we also might be tech heavy and therefore at a disadvantage to a force using team. With the force users able to sprint or leap past the obstacles while carrying the ball it gives an unfair advantage to them while the rest of us have to wait for the flames to die down. Unless you expect us techs to only stand on our goal line. All 8 people on a team should be viable ball carriers. I guess my best bet as a tech user is to just leave Huttball and try to get into one of the other 3 warzones.
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I think legacy is suppose to benefit the companion issues. Seriously I have about +250 Presence from legacy buffs only and I have decent gear mainly some level 50 blues and battlemaster gear and I can farm easy with Nadia my Melee DPS.

 

Also the +250 really helps when leveling a new character. I really don't even need my healer or tank companion.

 

That is like saying "only do content you outgear/outlevel" though. If DPS companions' damage was universally boosted, it'd achieve a similar result but be less satisfying than having more options for your companion's storylines.

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That is like saying "only do content you outgear/outlevel" though. If DPS companions' damage was universally boosted, it'd achieve a similar result but be less satisfying than having more options for your companion's storylines.

 

The DPS dmg is boosted from your legacy so it would help with fresh new characters. +250 really boosts your companion dmg and healing. However, the problem would probably rely on getting +250 presence from legacy. Getting that would require 3 characters than have maxed affection (or close) and completed act 2. It would also require the +100 Human Legacy Buff.

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The DPS dmg is boosted from your legacy so it would help with fresh new characters. +250 really boosts your companion dmg and healing. However, the problem would probably rely on getting +250 presence from legacy. Getting that would require 3 characters than have maxed affection (or close) and completed act 2. It would also require the +100 Human Legacy Buff.

 

Yeah, it definitely makes for an awful lot of variability.

 

I'm also inclined to think it's variability that goes the wrong way - you want the newer players who don't have legacy to have a slightly easier time while they're learning how the game works, not the experienced players you're describing above to roflstomp content & get bored because they're no longer challenged.

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Maybe in 2 weeks, you guys can come up with some real answers on the game's abysmal performance problems. Especially when it comes to PvP/warzones. Are you ever going to answer these questions with something other than "we're looking into it"? Or are you going to keep taking the coward's way out and pretend the questions aren't being asked over and over on the forums?

 

I don't get any problems with the performance of the game (and I'm not on some almighty rig). If you're going to play on an inferior machine you have to expect inferior performance.

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The reason (as stated in the blog) is so that we don't end up with a Q&A with the same questions asked over and over and the same responses from the devs about features coming soon. We've taken your feedback and we wanted to be able to choose new questions that result in in-depth answers from our developers. This way, we can accumulate questions for two weeks and choose from there.

 

We'll definitely monitor community reaction to this and then decide from there if we want to continue to do weekly or bi-weekly Q&As.

 

I hate to point this out to you, but there are a LOT of questions being asked every week that aren't the same repeat ones. Just because you keep choosing to answer the same questions from people who couldn't be bothered to read the previous weeks doesn't mean there's a lack of questions to be answered.

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Not one question on rated warzones. Such failure.

 

*not one of those questions answered so as to give the appearance that not one was asked. It's a marketing ploy. Cherry pick or even plant community issues to "address" then brush all other issues under the rug to create the illusion of addressing community issues.

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Its once every two weeks becuase week after week they are getting progressivly less effort in the answers from those writing them./QUOTE]

 

The people answering them are getting further and further down the food chain too. The first few weeks it was Erikson and Zoeller, now we mostly get people we've never heard of.

 

Maybe in 2 weeks, you guys can come up with some real answers on the game's abysmal performance problems. Especially when it comes to PvP/warzones. Are you ever going to answer these questions with something other than "we're looking into it"? Or are you going to keep taking the coward's way out and pretend the questions aren't being asked over and over on the forums?

 

The real question is, having the biggest game budget ever, why did they choose the cheapest, ****est engine available?

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I don't get any problems with the performance of the game (and I'm not on some almighty rig). If you're going to play on an inferior machine you have to expect inferior performance.

 

Heavily overclocked i7, 12GB DDR3 and Crossfire 6950 GPUs, and people with rigs better are experiencing poor performance. Assumptions are fun, aren't they?

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The reason (as stated in the blog) is so that we don't end up with a Q&A with the same questions asked over and over and the same responses from the devs about features coming soon. We've taken your feedback and we wanted to be able to choose new questions that result in in-depth answers from our developers. This way, we can accumulate questions for two weeks and choose from there.

 

We'll definitely monitor community reaction to this and then decide from there if we want to continue to do weekly or bi-weekly Q&As.

 

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my concerns :)

 

I like the Q&A being weekly, but if bi-weekly does TRULY mean the answers will be more in depth that wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

Maybe on the Q&A off-weeks we could get a little blurb from a different developer talking about what they are looking forward to, noticing on the forums, interested in doing etc.

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