Can we please get Companion Disciplines?

[Cernow]

I just really hate as a Guardian I never really got to use Kira. So many characters have wasted companions because the combination just isn't going to work for how they are playing. Why as a Tank/DPS did I have to wait for most of the game to get a healing class companion when my second companion was just as capable of it if they followed the right AC?

 

Yep. And also some of the companions are poorly designed for the class they are matched with. Things such as melee dps with knockbacks paired with classes that do good aoe and need the mobs bunched. Tanks with aoe threat that breaks crowd control, paired with classes that need to use crowd control. And so on.

 

To give one specific example. Nadia.

 

Nadia has an aoe knockback. It's a pretty powerful ability and it makes total sense from a lore / story perspective as it's explained in her storyline why she does it. BUT it's a total nightmare from a gameplay perspective because it usually scatters mobs you are trying to AOE or it scatters one mob pack into another, causing adds. Not what you want on a Sage (it ruins your AOE) not what you want on a Shadow (you don't want to have to run around after scattered mobs). So, you end up turning this ability off, usually permanently. Wouldn't it be so much better if a Disciplines or customization system gave Nadia an alternative attack to use instead?

[well]

GW 1 had a great system for comps. They were called Hero's. You could set up their skills which came from yours. Shoot the BG series had a better system to me.

[Sorwen]

^ I like Kira and all, but she's always stealing my mobs off me. She doesn't even tank, and I'm trying to generate enough threat that they try to chip at my guardian until they die at her blade.

 

Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Me tank, meat shield of awesome?

Sadly my Doc often seems to think he is the tank.

 

 

 

Yep. And also some of the companions are poorly designed for the class they are matched with. Things such as melee dps with knockbacks paired with classes that do good aoe and need the mobs bunched. Tanks with aoe threat that breaks crowd control, paired with classes that need to use crowd control. And so on.

 

To give one specific example. Nadia.

 

Nadia has an aoe knockback. It's a pretty powerful ability and it makes total sense from a lore / story perspective as it's explained in her storyline why she does it. BUT it's a total nightmare from a gameplay perspective because it usually scatters mobs you are trying to AOE or it scatters one mob pack into another, causing adds. Not what you want on a Sage (it ruins your AOE) not what you want on a Shadow (you don't want to have to run around after scattered mobs). So, you end up turning this ability off, usually permanently. Wouldn't it be so much better if a Disciplines or customization system gave Nadia an alternative attack to use instead?

God yes. Bowdaar drive me nuts in the same way for picking up adds like that, but as a DPS Scoundrel I've got no choice but to use him. And it also drives me nuts his AI will attacked stunned creatures.

[Sorwen]

Honestly in a way it is easy. You setup AI types(Tank/Healer/DPS) then you set powers to have various priorities by type. You only have to have 3 AI's no matter how many companions or power options you ever create because they don't care what the end power they are using actually does.

 

As how stupid(reflection of the AI not the Devs) the AI seems to be I would think this would already be the case. You already see this in the fact that they have to turn off powers to create difficulty in many bosses because their AIs already don't have any real depth of thought.

[Oneirophrenia]

Instead of disciplines, I would actually suggest skill trees for our companions. The structure for a healer companion's tree could look something like the following:

 

---------------- (healing focus) --- (damage focus) ---

Tier 4 ----------------- █ ------------------- █ ----------------

----------------------- (0/1) --------------- (0/1) --------------

------------------------- / ----------------------- \ ----------------

Tier 3 --------------- █ ---------- █ --------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------

Tier 2 --------------- █ --------- █ ----------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------ / --------------------------- \ -------------

Tier 1 -------------- █ ------ █ ------ █ ------ █ ------------

--------------------- (0/2) -- (0/1) -- (0/1) -- (0/2) ---------

 

Edit: Ignore the dash marks, wouldn't display correctly unless I did this.

 

For tank companions the focuses could be defense and damage while for dps companions the focuses could be single target and AoE. Anyway, more specifics regarding the skill tree.

 

Starting at level 10, we will get a single point to spend and one point every 5 levels thereafter for a total of 11 at level 60. You will also need to spend 3 points each tier before you can advance to the next one up. And just like our current character skill trees, to gain access to certain talents in tiers 2-4, you would have to max out the talent preceeding it. In the above example, it is the talents on the outside of each tier connected by lines. The talents in the middle of tier 1-3 are more utility in nature (alacrity boost, crit chance boost, surge boost, damage reduction, etc) without prerequisite as long as you have access to the tier. Now with only 11 points to spend the player can't max out both healing and damage focuses. The best he can do would be to take all 4 tiers of healing talents while reaching tier 2 of the damage focus, foregoing all utility talents in the process which may not be such a good idea. Lastly, there would be no ability talents thus eliminating the need for a unique tree for each and every existing companion.

 

I think something like this will give the players more flexibility to adjust their companion's roles without completely altering it. For example, a dps character may want to maximize his healer companion's healing output as they are squishier. In contrast, a tank character may forgo the extra healing talents for their healer companion, being sturdier and all, instead opting for a bit more dps to kill things faster.

 

Edit 2: Someone mentioned field respec as an unlockable perk which I forgot to mention. That would be a good idea and can be done as easily as adding "save, cancel, reset points" to the corner of the skill tree pop-up window.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Oneirophrenia

[LyraineAlei]

Instead of disciplines, I would actually suggest skill trees for our companions. The structure for a healer companion's tree could look something like the following:

 

---------------- (healing focus) --- (damage focus) -------

Tier 4 ----------------- █ ------------------- █ ----------------

----------------------- (0/1) --------------- (0/1) --------------

----------------------- / ----------------------- \ ----------------

Tier 3 --------------- █ ---------- █ ---------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

----------------------- | ----------------------- | ---------------

Tier 2 ---------------- █ --------- █ ---------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

---------------------- / ------------------------ \ -------------

Tier 1 --------------- █ ------ █ ------ █ ----- █ ------------

--------------------- (0/2) -- (0/1) -- (0/1) -- (0/2) ----------

 

Edit: Ignore the dash marks, wouldn't display correctly unless I did this.

 

For tank companions the focuses could be defense and damage while for dps companions the focuses could be single target and AoE. Anyway, more specifics regarding the skill tree.

 

Starting at level 10, we will get a single point to spend and one point every 5 levels thereafter for a total of 11 at level 60. You will also need to spend 3 points in a tiers 1-3 before you can advance to the next one up. And just like our current character skill trees, to gain access to certain talents in tiers 2-4, you would have to max out the talent preceeding it. In the above example, it is the talents on the outside of each tier connected by lines. The talents in the middle of tier 1-3 are more utility in nature (alacrity boost, crit chance boost, surge boost, damage reduction, etc) without prerequisite as long as you have access to the tier. Now with only 11 points of spend the player can't max out both healing and damage focuses. The best he can do would be to take all 4 tiers of healing talents while reaching tier 2 of the damage focus, foregoing all utility talents in the process which may not be such a good idea. Lastly, there would be no ability talents thus eliminating the need for a unique tree for each and every existing companion.

 

I think something like this will give the players more flexibility to adjust their companion's roles without completely altering it. For example, a dps character may want to maximize his healer companion's healing output as they are squisher while a tank character may forgo the extra healing talents as they are sturdier while opting for a bit more dps from their healer companion to kill things faster.

 

I think this one. It could even allow for us to make our comps a little different from other people's.

[Ridickilis]

Instead of disciplines, I would actually suggest skill trees for our companions. The structure for a healer companion's tree could look something like the following:

 

---------------- (healing focus) --- (damage focus) ---

Tier 4 ----------------- █ ------------------- █ ----------------

----------------------- (0/1) --------------- (0/1) --------------

------------------------- / ----------------------- \ ----------------

Tier 3 --------------- █ ---------- █ --------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------

Tier 2 --------------- █ --------- █ ----------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------ / --------------------------- \ -------------

Tier 1 -------------- █ ------ █ ------ █ ------ █ ------------

--------------------- (0/2) -- (0/1) -- (0/1) -- (0/2) ---------

 

Edit: Ignore the dash marks, wouldn't display correctly unless I did this.

 

For tank companions the focuses could be defense and damage while for dps companions the focuses could be single target and AoE. Anyway, more specifics regarding the skill tree.

 

Starting at level 10, we will get a single point to spend and one point every 5 levels thereafter for a total of 11 at level 60. You will also need to spend 3 points in a tiers 1-3 before you can advance to the next one up. And just like our current character skill trees, to gain access to certain talents in tiers 2-4, you would have to max out the talent preceeding it. In the above example, it is the talents on the outside of each tier connected by lines. The talents in the middle of tier 1-3 are more utility in nature (alacrity boost, crit chance boost, surge boost, damage reduction, etc) without prerequisite as long as you have access to the tier. Now with only 11 points of spend the player can't max out both healing and damage focuses. The best he can do would be to take all 4 tiers of healing talents while reaching tier 2 of the damage focus, foregoing all utility talents in the process which may not be such a good idea. Lastly, there would be no ability talents thus eliminating the need for a unique tree for each and every existing companion.

 

I think something like this will give the players more flexibility to adjust their companion's roles without completely altering it. For example, a dps character may want to maximize his healer companion's healing output as they are squisher while a tank character may forgo the extra healing talents as they are sturdier while opting for a bit more dps from their healer companion to kill things faster.

 

This is a really great suggestion and outline.

 

Do want, pls add.

 

And then BW can add a companion field respec's in the legacy for more credtis/cc coins.

[wainot-keel]

Killing companions was removed because too many people in beta regretted it and made tickets to get the companion restored. They are concerned if they allow players to kill companions that it would overload CS, so they killed the option.

 

yeah, I get why the option to kill them was removed, but the kit didn't need to be removed as well. I mean, it was already there. What would be the problem of not killing companions and still keep the option of different roles for them ?

[jorill]

yeah, I get why the option to kill them was removed, but the kit didn't need to be removed as well. I mean, it was already there. What would be the problem of not killing companions and still keep the option of different roles for them ?

 

I think they wanted companions to feel unique in terms of their skills. I personally think its rubbish and just another in a long line of dev mistakes from the original team.

[BrintoSFJ]

YES!!! i want that too. They can be made like companion's ok DA series. But sadly we know unlike DA team swtor team is not that good to achieve something like that. Edited November 20, 2014 by BrintoSFJ

[BrintoSFJ]

Instead of disciplines, I would actually suggest skill trees for our companions. The structure for a healer companion's tree could look something like the following:

 

---------------- (healing focus) --- (damage focus) ---

Tier 4 ----------------- █ ------------------- █ ----------------

----------------------- (0/1) --------------- (0/1) --------------

------------------------- / ----------------------- \ ----------------

Tier 3 --------------- █ ---------- █ --------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------

Tier 2 --------------- █ --------- █ ----------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------ / --------------------------- \ -------------

Tier 1 -------------- █ ------ █ ------ █ ------ █ ------------

--------------------- (0/2) -- (0/1) -- (0/1) -- (0/2) ---------

 

Edit: Ignore the dash marks, wouldn't display correctly unless I did this.

 

For tank companions the focuses could be defense and damage while for dps companions the focuses could be single target and AoE. Anyway, more specifics regarding the skill tree.

 

Starting at level 10, we will get a single point to spend and one point every 5 levels thereafter for a total of 11 at level 60. You will also need to spend 3 points in tiers 1-3 before you can advance to the next one up. And just like our current character skill trees, to gain access to certain talents in tiers 2-4, you would have to max out the talent preceeding it. In the above example, it is the talents on the outside of each tier connected by lines. The talents in the middle of tier 1-3 are more utility in nature (alacrity boost, crit chance boost, surge boost, damage reduction, etc) without prerequisite as long as you have access to the tier. Now with only 11 points of spend the player can't max out both healing and damage focuses. The best he can do would be to take all 4 tiers of healing talents while reaching tier 2 of the damage focus, foregoing all utility talents in the process which may not be such a good idea. Lastly, there would be no ability talents thus eliminating the need for a unique tree for each and every existing companion.

 

I think something like this will give the players more flexibility to adjust their companion's roles without completely altering it. For example, a dps character may want to maximize his healer companion's healing output as they are squishier while a tank character may forgo the extra healing talents as they are sturdier while opting for a bit more dps from their healer companion to kill things faster.

Now that is a very well written post. nice idea and something i wish were added in game.

[Deewe]

Reminded me this: Community Q&A: May 11th, 2012

 

Deewe: With the locked companion specs, some of us feel like being forced to use specific companions versus choosing them for their personality and look. Is there in the works any kind of feature mitigating this issue (hint: companions kits)?

 

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Companions in BioWare games have always been fully developed characters with their own backgrounds and skills. While you can change between a couple different approaches with each, we do not presently have plans to make Companion Characters interchangeable.

 

 

And this: MCM 2012 Expo SWTOR Panel

Q: Any plans for customization of your companions?

A: Funny story, we planned to have customizations with your companions from the very beginning but the we changed our mind. Players then asked – why don’t you have customization? Yes, you are right. We are going to continue to introduce new skins for companions but it is not a great system – it is a ok system we introduced into the game very quickly (actually I implemented it so I can brag about it a little bit). We are working on a much better system but it is not the highest priority atm although it is very important. There is a cognitive dissonance when you have two sith warriors meet up with identical Vette.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Instead of disciplines, I would actually suggest skill trees for our companions. The structure for a healer companion's tree could look something like the following:

 

---------------- (healing focus) --- (damage focus) ---

Tier 4 ----------------- █ ------------------- █ ----------------

----------------------- (0/1) --------------- (0/1) --------------

------------------------- / ----------------------- \ ----------------

Tier 3 --------------- █ ---------- █ --------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------- | ------------------------- | ---------------

Tier 2 --------------- █ --------- █ ----------- █ --------------

--------------------- (0/2) ------ (0/1) ------ (0/2) ------------

------------------------ / --------------------------- \ -------------

Tier 1 -------------- █ ------ █ ------ █ ------ █ ------------

--------------------- (0/2) -- (0/1) -- (0/1) -- (0/2) ---------

 

Edit: Ignore the dash marks, wouldn't display correctly unless I did this.

 

For tank companions the focuses could be defense and damage while for dps companions the focuses could be single target and AoE. Anyway, more specifics regarding the skill tree.

 

Starting at level 10, we will get a single point to spend and one point every 5 levels thereafter for a total of 11 at level 60. You will also need to spend 3 points in tiers 1-3 before you can advance to the next one up. And just like our current character skill trees, to gain access to certain talents in tiers 2-4, you would have to max out the talent preceeding it. In the above example, it is the talents on the outside of each tier connected by lines. The talents in the middle of tier 1-3 are more utility in nature (alacrity boost, crit chance boost, surge boost, damage reduction, etc) without prerequisite as long as you have access to the tier. Now with only 11 points of spend the player can't max out both healing and damage focuses. The best he can do would be to take all 4 tiers of healing talents while reaching tier 2 of the damage focus, foregoing all utility talents in the process which may not be such a good idea. Lastly, there would be no ability talents thus eliminating the need for a unique tree for each and every existing companion.

 

I think something like this will give the players more flexibility to adjust their companion's roles without completely altering it. For example, a dps character may want to maximize his healer companion's healing output as they are squishier while a tank character may forgo the extra healing talents as they are sturdier while opting for a bit more dps from their healer companion to kill things faster.

 

While this is an interesting idea, the lack of getting new abilities puts me off. Why do I say this? Because with, for example, Mako, even if I have her on DPS stance, she only has 2 abilities that can deal decent DPS. And she really doesn't use them. Companions should have a "Basic" ability that is integral in their main role(Casted Heal/damage or Taunt), then 4 skills from their Discipline(Such as a DoT or Hard-Hitting Instant attack or an AoE ability), then 2 "Utility" abilities(Such as Kolto Bomb, Channeled Stun, Medprobes, etc.). I'm not asking for them to be amazing at their secondary role, just not useless.

[TheSupaCoopa]

Reminded me this: Community Q&A: May 11th, 2012

 

 

 

 

And this: MCM 2012 Expo SWTOR Panel

 

Considering that many of the original Devs left, I doubt they would stick exactly to the system they implemented at launch.

[Oneirophrenia]

While this is an interesting idea, the lack of getting new abilities puts me off. Why do I say this? Because with, for example, Mako, even if I have her on DPS stance, she only has 2 abilities that can deal decent DPS. And she really doesn't use them. Companions should have a "Basic" ability that is integral in their main role(Casted Heal/damage or Taunt), then 4 skills from their Discipline(Such as a DoT or Hard-Hitting Instant attack or an AoE ability), then 2 "Utility" abilities(Such as Kolto Bomb, Channeled Stun, Medprobes, etc.). I'm not asking for them to be amazing at their secondary role, just not useless.

 

Well, I chose to suggest this skill tree based system out of pragmatism more than anything. After all, it is really just a modification of an advancement system that is already in game. I'm not a developer or programmer but in practice that should cut down on the development time and resources(?). With that said, adding new abilities for every companion as part of the customization option would require a lot more work for BW due to animation reasons. To correlate that with my skill tree suggestion, most (if not all) companions would then require their very own unique skill tree instead just one tree for each role type. For a feature that BW has seemingly put on the backburner (or forgotten about), it doesn't seem realistic to have that level of expectation in my opinion.

 

Edit: Forgot to address the deficiencies regarding the existing damage abilities for healer companions. That could still be addressed by the skill tree without adding in new abilities. First and foremost, consider the fact that companions do not have secondary resource pools, with ability cooldowns being the main method of limiting their effectiveness and sustain. Next, using my illustration above, let's say that the damage focus talents in the skill tree are as follows:

 

Tier 1: Increasing all direct damage dealt by 3/6%.

Tier 2: Increasing armor penetration of damages dealt by attacks by 5/10%.

Tier 3: Damaging attacks have a 50/100% chance of applying a DoT effect that does X amount of damage over X number of seconds.

Tier 4: Increasing the amount of DoT damage by 10%.

 

Now also assume that the various utility talents in the tree is as follows:

 

Tier 1: 5% increase to alacrity (which after 3.0 would not just impact activation time and ability cooldown but also GCD,from what I understand at least).

Tier 2: 3% additional critcal chance to all damaging and healing abilities.

Tier 3: 10% increase to all critical result.

* The other tier 1 utility could be a damage reduction boost for the companion which has nothing to do with damage output.

 

The numbers I used are subjective of course but I digress. With 11 available points at level 60, you can select all of those talents I mentioned with the net result being harder hitting direct damage, additional DoT damage, more frequent and larger crits, all of which are refreshing at a faster rate. In theory at least, that should provide a fairly sizeable increase in the damage output by this healer companion. Of course it would still be far inferior to the damage output of pure dps companions but that's the way it should be.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Oneirophrenia

[Muljo_Stpho]

On the other hand though, there is the approach taken with Treek where a few of her abilities are programmed to function completely differently depending on which stance she's in. Perhaps they could just revisit all of the companion abilities and change specific ones to feature stance based functionality to emphasize what that stance is supposed to be about.

 

I wanted to go back to this idea again and try to brainstorm how it could work with a specific example.

http://www.torhead.com/npc/5OaXEMY/mako#class-abilities;sort:name,-level

So I'm looking at Mako's abilities to ask "What clauses could be added to each of her active abilities to differentiate their functionality between Blaster Stance and Med Watch?"

 

She has Charged Shot (direct damage), Cleanse, Electro-Stasis (stun), Field Dress (heal over time), Kolto Jolt (large instant heal), Med Scan (small instant heal), Medical Pack (area heal), and Wounding Blast (damage over time)...

 

A few quick ideas off the top of my head would be:

* Wounding Blast gains a minor party heal effect when in Med Watch.

* Cleanse baseline lowered to 1 effect cleansed, but Med Watch brings it back to 2 and also adds a small heal.

* Electro-Stasis renamed to something like Electro-Field, current behavior applies only to Med Watch, and a damage over time effect is described for Blaster Stance.

* Medical Pack passes a damage over time effect to enemies within its area when in Blaster Stance.

 

So without changing the list of abilities Mako has available (aside from that rename because "stasis" in the name of an attack would be weird) and without getting into any rework of the system to add a small "tree" or some small discipline paths for each companion, she gains a couple new ways to deal damage in her DPS stance (and her healing options are boosted a little bit in Med Watch as well).

 

They would just have to take some time to look over every companion and consider where they can tweak certain moves to function better in one stance or to function differently in each stance.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Muljo_Stpho

[Deewe]

Well, I chose to suggest this skill tree based system out of pragmatism more than anything. After all, it is really just a modification of an advancement system that is already in game. I'm not a developer or programmer but in practice that should cut down on the development time and resources(?). With that said, adding new abilities for every companion as part of the customization option would require a lot more work for BW due to animation reasons. To correlate that with my skill tree suggestion, most (if not all) companions would then require their very own unique skill tree instead just one tree for each role type. For a feature that BW has seemingly put on the backburner (or forgotten about), it doesn't seem realistic to have that level of expectation in my opinion.

 

Edit: Forgot to address the deficiencies regarding the existing damage abilities for healer companions. That could still be addressed by the skill tree without adding in new abilities. First and foremost, consider the fact that companions do not have secondary resource pools, with ability cooldowns being the main method of limiting their effectiveness and sustain. Next, using my illustration above, let's say that the damage focus talents in the skill tree are as follows:

 

Tier 1: Increasing all direct damage dealt by 3/6%.

Tier 2: Increasing armor penetration of damages dealt by attacks by 5/10%.

Tier 3: Damaging attacks have a 50/100% chance of applying a DoT effect that does X amount of damage over X number of seconds.

Tier 4: Increasing the amount of DoT damage by 10%.

 

Now also assume that the various utility talents in the tree is as follows:

 

Tier 1: 5% increase to alacrity (which after 3.0 would not just impact activation time and ability cooldown but also GCD,from what I understand at least).

Tier 2: 3% additional critcal chance to all damaging and healing abilities.

Tier 3: 10% increase to all critical result.

* The other tier 1 utility could be a damage reduction boost for the companion which has nothing to do with damage output.

 

The numbers I used are subjective of course but I digress. With 11 available points at level 60, you can select all of those talents I mentioned with the net result being harder hitting direct damage, additional DoT damage, more frequent and larger crits, all of which are refreshing at a faster rate. In theory at least, that should provide a fairly sizeable increase in the damage output by this healer companion. Of course it would still be far inferior to the damage output of pure dps companions but that's the way it should be.

Let's get back to the basics.

 

The idea is to let player be efficient with the companion they want, whatever their combat game style .

 

1. Roles and look have to be separated one from the other.
   
2. Players need to be able to choose either one of the following role: Tank / Heal / DPS for their companions.
   

 

With the above you are already filling like 80% of the desired effects and it would be made by implementing 3 different roles for the characters.

 

You can top that with the following to make the system better

• Add AoE or Single target specification for the roles.
  

 

If you want to make it even better, simply allow players to choose the AC for each character and their specification Tank / Heal / DPS .

 

Thus allowing player to choose not only the weapon used by their companions, but also the type of Tanking / Healing / DPSing.

 

Finally you need to allow players to tweak the companion skills in the companion quick bar but also the player one.

 

At some point you might want to revisit companion AI:

• Don't break stuns
  
• Don't push mobs actually targeted by the character
  
• Don't KD on players AoE
  
• Don't steal aggro from a tank
  
• Sticky target for companions
  
• Always attack my target
  
• Ignore marked target
  
• Allow players to move companions to specific positions and stay there.
  
• Allow players to queue companions skills or eventually set rotation patterns
  

 

That being said Oneirophrenia, your idea is interesting but allowing players to actually choose skills inside trees vs statics ones might be too much effort. So I guess if we ever have the possibility to choose one of the 3 roles, would already be great. Even if too often the dev's choice of weapon type for companions is really killing the fun.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Deewe

[Gwena]

I think that every companion should be able to optimally perform at least two different combat roles -- their "original" one, plus 1-2 more that wouldn't be ridiculous for their character. There have been some great suggestions and brainstorming in this thread! To be honest, I'm not too particular on how they do it, so long as companion roles ultimately become more flexible. I'll take any improvement I can get.

 

Sometimes, I see people comment that you can use any companion you want, so this isn't needed. Well . . . yes and no. Technically, of course you can. No one is taking Mako away from your Merc healer. But tank + tank or healer + healer is highly inefficient and is generally a PITA to play. And sure, I can use Andronikos on my DPS Shadow. But you know what? That is a "risky" play style with a smaller margin of error than if I was playing with, say, Khem or Talos. Not everyone has the presence, resources (for gearing) and/or skill to pull off, let alone enjoy, less optimal player/companion combos.

 

I hope that someday Bioware will consider giving our companions greater flexibility in their roles, to let all players have more freedom to choose which companion to use.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Gwena

[LordArtemis]

I would love the ability to determine my companions role in some way, like it was in Beta.

[Deewe]

I would love the ability to determine my companions role in some way, like it was in Beta.

Who wouldn't?

 

Don't think there any player out there that don't want to at least change the role of one of their companions

[AlrikFassbauer]

I would love the ability to determine my companions role in some way, like it was in Beta.

 

Sad that I didn't play the Beta, then.

[Deewe]

Sad that I didn't play the Beta, then.

At least you are not missing it