Painstorm Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 I just finished chapter 1-9 and now I'm at the base gathering allies/companions. I know that for story reasons, you recruit allies to "strengthen the alliance". But regarding game-play, you can only have one companion with you all the time and they can now all fill the same roles. And regarding crew skills, then you can only send 5 at the same time anyway. I'm obviously not that far into the expansion, so I just wonder if there at any point later is an actual use for all those allies. Does it matter at all whether I got 10, 20 or 30?
DarthMaulUK Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 because there's nothing else to do! Each pet requires 500k 'affection', that's 3.5 hours of stuffing them gifts, or running relentless 'heroics' to earn it. Why on earth it all couldn't be legacy wide kinda proves how much of a pointless exercise it is.
HoloTweed Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) because there's nothing else to do! Each pet requires 500k 'affection', that's 3.5 hours of stuffing them gifts, or running relentless 'heroics' to earn it. Why on earth it all couldn't be legacy wide kinda proves how much of a pointless exercise it is. Because why would a companion who doesn't know you very well (or may not have even met "you" as a character) suddenly have legacy affection for you because you fought with/gifted them on an entirely different character? Sorry, that makes zero sense. Edited November 7, 2015 by HoloTweed
rhiarose Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) if you start pulling at the thread of why MMOs have grindy gear raids and other farming events as part of their end game content you just unravel the whole MMO sweater. Logistically its to give you something to do before the new chapters are released. Many people are not happy with the stock companions. For example I absolutely hate Guss Tuno, I think he is the single most annoying SW character since Jar Jar. I'd personally put him, Tanno Vik and Skadge in the airlock and space them. Also from a story aspect, some companions have a history with others, Risha and Vette for example. Storywise you need all the help you can get and each of the original companions were part of events that shaped the galaxy, and while they are not the "hero" they are all seasoned veterans of the war and the events each main character experienced which makes them ideally suited to help you take down Arcann. Edited November 7, 2015 by rhiarose
WorldSmasher Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Why am I gathering allies/companions? If you are a Sith (especially a former Dark Councilor), it's because you want to grow your powerbase. A solid powerbase is what ensures your political, economic, and even military power. This Alliance is the tool you will use to remove your enemies and rivals, and your powerbase is what will propel you to the throne of a united Zakuul and Sith Empire! That's what my Nox is striving for! (Whether that will transpire in the story remains to be seen. I can hope, right?)
DizzD Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Pretty sure OP isn't asking for an RP reasoning. You can use RP to prove/disprove anything because it's totally subjective. The issue is what is the gameplay motivation to grind for companions. There really isn't a concrete benefit to having more than 6 companions, so why bother grinding affection over multiple companions and multiple characters? It's basically just grind for the sake of grind. Not being legacy wide makes it even less appealing, and frankly, most players just won't do it. If this is what's supposed to keep players engaged and active, I'm afraid the results will be disastrous.
keimox Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Pretty sure OP isn't asking for an RP reasoning. You can use RP to prove/disprove anything because it's totally subjective. The issue is what is the gameplay motivation to grind for companions. There really isn't a concrete benefit to having more than 6 companions, so why bother grinding affection over multiple companions and multiple characters? It's basically just grind for the sake of grind. Not being legacy wide makes it even less appealing, and frankly, most players just won't do it. If this is what's supposed to keep players engaged and active, I'm afraid the results will be disastrous. I think it's just for the grind. Personally I won't do any of those alliance recruit missions. Not that killing few world bosses or playing some WZ etc. to get them is hard or anything but personally I don't need anymore companions. Have already like 20 just for doing Star Fortress bunker missions and KOTFE story.
Nippon Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 (edited) I just finished chapter 1-9 and now I'm at the base gathering allies/companions. I know that for story reasons, you recruit allies to "strengthen the alliance". But regarding game-play, you can only have one companion with you all the time and they can now all fill the same roles. And regarding crew skills, then you can only send 5 at the same time anyway. I'm obviously not that far into the expansion, so I just wonder if there at any point later is an actual use for all those allies. Does it matter at all whether I got 10, 20 or 30? In a nut shell NO... Its literally Hitbold from LOTRO which released 3 years ago in another form, its a filler with absolutely no purpose what so ever, as you say, to many comps, no real pupose and its lazy development, the story was good for the 4 hours i played it. Now 3 weeks in to it, have maxed out 2 Comps on my main and im about to hit 20 with my Alliance guys.....Will I do it on another character..............Not a chance in Hell Its the most boring mindless grind ive seen in an MMO other than LOTRO, and Tubine scrapped it after 6 months. As i said that was 3 years ago. Didn't work then, wont work now, lots of subs left because of it and the back story and content in that was 10 times what is on offer here. There is nothing worth buying once you complete Alliance other than maybe a speeder, nothing decent on vendors as its all the same crap you get on fleet anyway. It might help if they actually gave us something decent to spend Glowing Crystals on (Cant do that though because what goes in the CM then), Maxed out 3 Characters already with 216's, so they are pointless as well now, don't get me started on the amount of Legacy Gear i have looted which is instantly vendored. 4.0 = Pointless IMHO. Edited November 7, 2015 by Nippon
chosonman Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 I finished kotfe with one of my characters and realized I Do Not want to play it through with my other characters because I lose the companion I already have and built affection for and I end up with way more companion than I need our have time for. As for crafting it's easier to pick my crafting comps from a shorter list than a long and bloated one. I can understand if someone wants to collect them all they are like pets now.
Callaron Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 Pretty sure OP isn't asking for an RP reasoning. You can use RP to prove/disprove anything because it's totally subjective. The issue is what is the gameplay motivation to grind for companions. There really isn't a concrete benefit to having more than 6 companions, so why bother grinding affection over multiple companions and multiple characters? It's basically just grind for the sake of grind. Not being legacy wide makes it even less appealing, and frankly, most players just won't do it. If this is what's supposed to keep players engaged and active, I'm afraid the results will be disastrous. I like the story reasons behind it, so on one character I'll get them all. But my future alts will likely just cherry pick the companions they actually like. Which is largely what the whole system is about anyway; giving you a choice of the companions you actually want.
MaximusRex Posted November 7, 2015 Posted November 7, 2015 I don't know, why are you gathering allies/companions? Why would you come to the forums and ask us why you are doing something? Why would you think total strangers have that kind if insight into your mind?
Painstorm Posted November 10, 2015 Author Posted November 10, 2015 I don't know, why are you gathering allies/companions? Why would you come to the forums and ask us why you are doing something? Why would you think total strangers have that kind if insight into your mind? I guess the title should have been: "Why are we gathering allies/companions?" Luckily the rest of the posters here understood what I meant, so thanks for the replies Basically I just wondered, if you at some point later could send companions out to do stuff for you (not thinking of crew skills here). Something that would actually benefit your character. But I see now, that companions are just like collecting other stuff like pets or mounts.
IanArgent Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Because we are. Seriously, other than Pokemon Syndrome (gotta catch them all), I don't think there is a reason to get all the comps and max all their affections. Certainly not in the short time since 4.0 launched. Get the ones you want, ignore the ones you don't.
Master-Nala Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 But I see now, that companions are just like collecting other stuff like pets or mounts. Exactly. And that's good for the most part, but it's bad for some players. For most players this gives them another way to customize their characters. You get and use the companions you want only. This allows things like having more companions on the Cartel Market. It opens up new ways to reward all aspects of play. But some folks can't get over their obsessive need to 'catch 'em all' and so for them, this is a nightmarish grind.
Poubo Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 I imagine that you will be able to send them on Alliance missions (similar to crew skills) and as part of the story they will do other bits. However I am speculating based on what "companions" do in other Bioware titles like Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
Rabenschwinge Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 And regarding crew skills, then you can only send 5 at the same time anyway. You can send six. To quote the Architect: The problem is choice. I believe the primary reason why one would make so many companions available is to give the player more choice of what kind of character they constantly want around there own and be less tied to a limited set. You can now choose which companions you want to use and which you don't. Besides: Currently we have less companions than we did before. Five per base class and two ship droids, that made 42 companions previously. Only with more strings attached.
IanArgent Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Note that the Alliance companions are in a separate section of the companions window than are the "KotFE" companions. Main Characters vs Other Followers. The Other Followers section explicitly includes companions (such as Treek and HK-51) who are not guaranteed to be available to all. Note that not ALL pre-KotFE class companions are in that category (there are 2 exceptions through Ch9 and the Ch10 teaser implies a third). More evidence that BW does not expect you to go through the grind to get every Other Follower. You can if you want, but there doesn't seem to be any reason that you must. (And if it's your class's companion, you may bypass the grinding aspect of recruiting, anyway, either by an explicit skip (4X, quyzen, Lokin(?) ) or by using the retrieval terminal.)
Bobs_YourUncle Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 I just finished chapter 1-9 and now I'm at the base gathering allies/companions. I know that for story reasons, you recruit allies to "strengthen the alliance". But regarding game-play, you can only have one companion with you all the time and they can now all fill the same roles. And regarding crew skills, then you can only send 5 at the same time anyway. I'm obviously not that far into the expansion, so I just wonder if there at any point later is an actual use for all those allies. Does it matter at all whether I got 10, 20 or 30? The real answer is we don't know exactly. What we do know, and maybe there's some other stuff Im missing, that you unlock boosts/stuff in the Star Fortress FPs. It isn't a large leap to assume future KotFE ops and FPs will have similar boosts/stuff you can have access to depending on specialist ranks. Companions specifically, I'm not sure beyond them being an immersion thing. Its at least meant to put you in to the job of actually building the alliance up. Only time will tell if there will be anything worthwhile beyond "woo, I got qyzen!", but it doesn't seem to be unlikely to me. We are literally just now recruiting them, so we have no clue how it will effect the future chapters.
StarMagus Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 There is a fine line they are going to have to be careful about walking. Ok so right now there is a gap between release of Chapter 9 and 10. However, think of how this will play out to a player who say signs up for things in June. At that point they'll have 15 chapters, but it would be horrible game design to have them run Chapters 1-9 then have to sit there for 2 months grinding out Alliance standing and companion ranks before they can run 10-15 in order not to get the "EVERYBODY DIES!!!!" ending.
Master-Nala Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 There is a fine line they are going to have to be careful about walking. Ok so right now there is a gap between release of Chapter 9 and 10. However, think of how this will play out to a player who say signs up for things in June. At that point they'll have 15 chapters, but it would be horrible game design to have them run Chapters 1-9 then have to sit there for 2 months grinding out Alliance standing and companion ranks before they can run 10-15 in order not to get the "EVERYBODY DIES!!!!" ending. I'll bet you don't need anything more than the "Main Character" companions that you'll get anyway.
VanorDM Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 I imagine that you will be able to send them on Alliance missions (similar to crew skills) and as part of the story they will do other bits. Would be cool to see a system like they have in STO, it's similar to the crew skills stuff, but there's a lot more of them and they aren't tied to just the crafting system/items.
Idoya Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Why am I gathering allies/companions? Gotta catch 'em all?
kjfett Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Because why would a companion who doesn't know you very well (or may not have even met "you" as a character) suddenly have legacy affection for you because you fought with/gifted them on an entirely different character? Sorry, that makes zero sense. This simply is not true. Loot at your legacy screen! There is a window specifically for the relationships between your charaters, be their siblings, children, friends, etc. My IA's characters would know my other characters because they are my IA's brother, sister, mother, father, etc. Would they have full affection, likely no, but it proves your excuse is simply, wrong.
StarMagus Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 This simply is not true. Loot at your legacy screen! There is a window specifically for the relationships between your charaters, be their siblings, children, friends, etc. My IA's characters would know my other characters because they are my IA's brother, sister, mother, father, etc. Would they have full affection, likely no, but it proves your excuse is simply, wrong. The game is designed for everybody not just the way you've set up your relationships. Maybe somebody else has a legacy that nobody knows each other.
MasterKayote Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Interested in this as well. Sounded fun, at first I thought it'd be great to get a possible force sensitive romance for my Agent but it doesnt look like thats going to happen.
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