SasuChan Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 So...what's the actual in-game benefit from this whole Alliance? What's the point of raising the ranks with companions and the specialists? I know that the higher rank you have with your actual companions the faster they do things/the more effective they are in combat, I supoose that's it? Doesn't look like it affects conversation choices anymore? But what about the specialists like Sana-Rae and others, anything at all beside some loot we get from the crates? Anything?? Don't tell me it's going to be like ME2/ME3, where our standing with companions/groups etc. affects what kind of options/outcomes we get in the later chapters... Did they ever say anything like that (I wasn't really following the news about KOTFE)? I sure hope that, say, having low influence with Sana-rae doesn't mean that Theron will die in later chpaters.... So I suppose my question is this....what are the benefits of higher influence ranks with specialists etc.? Has there been any news about it? If not, what do people think? It makes the difference whether I'm gonna grind it on all toons or just one Cheers guys!
Dbohrius Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 The short answer: nobody knows. My personal bet: yeah, they're going to take the ME2 / ME3 route, especially with the Alliance Specialists, but possibly with companions, too.
Heromofo Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 The short answer: nobody knows. My personal bet: yeah, they're going to take the ME2 / ME3 route, especially with the Alliance Specialists, but possibly with companions, too. Gonna agree i believe they are going that route where alliance ranks and the amount of companions you have non cartel ones will affect the stories outcome and wether a companion lives or dies.
SasuChan Posted November 4, 2015 Author Posted November 4, 2015 Thanks for the answers. Time to grind then.... Although I suppose it's not so bad, as with the class story changes there's not much point to have a lot of alts anymore, at least from the personal story POV.
Heromofo Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Thanks for the answers. Time to grind then.... Although I suppose it's not so bad, as with the class story changes there's not much point to have a lot of alts anymore, at least from the personal story POV. Nope just one main now i think that's why they brought in the legendary status because they knew full well. It is why i think they should make alliance and influence legacy wide for alts. Edited November 4, 2015 by Heromofo
Shipwright Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 Wondering very much about this whole alliance thing myself. I have yet to go through the story and actually now I am rather reluctant to do so at all. While I am liking the changes to the game, this alliance mechanism is sort of off putting. I am not especially interested in recruiting any companions. So, what is going to happen? I've been told you do not have to actually recruit anyone, but can one simply run the heroics, hand in crates, and everything is ok?
Heromofo Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 Wondering very much about this whole alliance thing myself. I have yet to go through the story and actually now I am rather reluctant to do so at all. While I am liking the changes to the game, this alliance mechanism is sort of off putting. I am not especially interested in recruiting any companions. So, what is going to happen? I've been told you do not have to actually recruit anyone, but can one simply run the heroics, hand in crates, and everything is ok? Not 100 percent sure but vote here for legacy alliance and influence if you wish to. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=850512
SasuChan Posted November 4, 2015 Author Posted November 4, 2015 Wondering very much about this whole alliance thing myself. I have yet to go through the story and actually now I am rather reluctant to do so at all. While I am liking the changes to the game, this alliance mechanism is sort of off putting. I am not especially interested in recruiting any companions. So, what is going to happen? I've been told you do not have to actually recruit anyone, but can one simply run the heroics, hand in crates, and everything is ok? To be fair, you can pretty much get until the end of Chapter IX and not worry about it, as it's only in Chapter IX that the Alliance comes into play. There's no new chapters past that yet. Seeing as nobody really knows what's going to happen, I think I'm gonna stick to plaing on one, maybe two toons only, and see later on how this whole Alliance influences the game further on. Would hate to ignore it and then loose some of the companions that I waited so long for
StarMagus Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 From a story point of view it would make 100% sense that how powerful your alliance is will affect how well it does when it battles the big bad at the end of the story. From a game play point of view it seems sort of cruel to ask a new player who joins the game 10 months from now to get to chapter 9 and then spend 2 months of time grinding their alliance base so they can move on with the next 8 or so chapters that are out so they don't have 1/2 of their companions croak on them. They need to find a balance of rewarding people who have awesome alliances, but not punishing people who are starting with new characters and don't want to grind months of alliance missions every time they make an alt.
sinisterwaffle Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 I would actually be quite happy if it turned out that say, every companion under rank 20 perished in the fight due to them just not getting enough training/gearing/etc whatever. Because then i could just pick and chose who lives and who dies! Goodbye Quinn! Goodbye Koth! Goodbye Skadge! etc hehe
Mowermanx Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 From a story point of view it would make 100% sense that how powerful your alliance is will affect how well it does when it battles the big bad at the end of the story. From a game play point of view it seems sort of cruel to ask a new player who joins the game 10 months from now to get to chapter 9 and then spend 2 months of time grinding their alliance base so they can move on with the next 8 or so chapters that are out so they don't have 1/2 of their companions croak on them. They need to find a balance of rewarding people who have awesome alliances, but not punishing people who are starting with new characters and don't want to grind months of alliance missions every time they make an alt. Its for that reason they won't have anything to do with outcomes, it goes directly against the direction they are taking the game. At most, there may be some small bonus/perks for having them higher, but I highly doubt much outside of that.
SasuChan Posted November 4, 2015 Author Posted November 4, 2015 so we can beat the reapers Made me laugh
SasuChan Posted November 4, 2015 Author Posted November 4, 2015 From a story point of view it would make 100% sense that how powerful your alliance is will affect how well it does when it battles the big bad at the end of the story. From a game play point of view it seems sort of cruel to ask a new player who joins the game 10 months from now to get to chapter 9 and then spend 2 months of time grinding their alliance base so they can move on with the next 8 or so chapters that are out so they don't have 1/2 of their companions croak on them. They need to find a balance of rewarding people who have awesome alliances, but not punishing people who are starting with new characters and don't want to grind months of alliance missions every time they make an alt. I can't decide whether I'm in favour of a system like that or not....on the one hand it feels like it fits better with a single player game such as ME + as you said, it's a bit unreasonable to expect people to grind those ranks on every.single.alt. for an X amount of time before moving forward. On the other hand....as someone mentioned.....goodbye Koth Anyway, would be good if we actually knew, seeing as loosing companions might be quite permanent.
Bobs_YourUncle Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 Well, rank 10 with the specialists gets you access to unlock boosts/skills while doing the star fortress fps. I imagine we'll be seeing similar things like that in future chapters, maybe even the ops they are supposedly working on.
Avorniel Posted November 4, 2015 Posted November 4, 2015 It is why i think they should make alliance and influence legacy wide for alts. Please please please with a cherry on top.. Got 13 characters at present 2 pending and there is no way am I going to grind them all up to max influance,it's bad enough with 2 trying to do the heroics for crates let alone 13+ lol
Mirandel Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 Well, rank 10 with the specialists gets you access to unlock boosts/skills while doing the star fortress fps. I imagine we'll be seeing similar things like that in future chapters, maybe even the ops they are supposedly working on. Looks like for now this is the main point of the whole thing (not to mention gifts for companions and armor skins you get along the way). Well can be it remains this way - and I am personally all for it. You can still get the story in full potential yet get something useful for your hours of grind.
Max_Killjoy Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 The purpose of the Alliance system is to install the grind of all grinds that players would have to drag each character through one at a time, largely in old content that's nonsensical story-wise in most cases (go kill some Jedi on that planet to build up your alliance that's supposed to include Jedi...), eating up time between short, plot-recycling, cutscene-filled "new content".
Burana Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 I sure hope that, say, having low influence with Sana-rae doesn't mean that Theron will die in later chpaters.... Wait, what??? why does he have to die, what does it have to do with Sana-rae? I unsubscribe and erase the game if Theron dies. And no, my stuff won't be donated to anyone.
captainwesson Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 This whole legacy influence idea seems silly to me, honestly. We never had it before with our other companions (affection). Why would we need it now? I might...slightly...might see a reason for the legacy alliance, if someone was really so lazy as they couldn't take time to solo all the heroics once (after the initial recruiting is finished) which provides enough influence to get every alliance to 10. Takes a couple days. One good weekend. So, still not much of an argument there. (Yes I'm aware and agree that some of the heroics don't quite make sense...but that's another matter.) Companion influence isn't supposed to be a grind fest (yes, I know that most mmo'ers, including myself, often make everything a grind fest). They raised the cap for many reasons. One of which being that as you progress through the chapters, you naturally gain influence with your companions. You also gain it in the Star Fortresses/bonuses. Since there are many chapters left, and probably many more missions, I see no reason to make a big rush to get any of them all the way to 50. They are already stupidly powerful at 20. I'll give a gift here and there if it drops, but mainly I'll just pop it in my legacy bank and save it for an alt. Also, I'm pretty sure that added on to the influence thing is the "remember" mechanic. Do you honestly want Lana to hate your Agent for something your Knight did? That's just silly.
Deluxe_ Posted November 5, 2015 Posted November 5, 2015 I'm pretty sure the level of your Alliance will have absolutely nothing to do with how your story develops in the future. Mostly because it would mean that in the upcoming story chapters your choices matter but so far the storyline has been pretty linear. They just don't have the resources to make a story with multiple outcomes. The real purpose of Alliance is grind. This is what we're supposed to do every month while waiting for the new chapter.
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