Companion Changes in 4.0.2

[Apache]

I just re-subbed after a couple year break a few weeks ago. I have absolutely been loving game and having a blast. The companion changes were a large part of why I re-subbed and was giving the game another try. One of the things I've enjoyed the most is being able to play more of the content solo or with a friend. I enjoy group content/ play as well but don't like always being forced to do so, especially if no one is on or interested in older content. The improved companions also made it so much more fun to work on alts. I had been planning on playing at least one of each of class.

 

I won't be renewing my sub after this change. Bioware you've once again listened to a very vocal minority and made sweeping changes that will hurt the game and your profits.

 

lol isn't it tragic?

 

I also just resubbed after being gone for a year and a half. One of the big reasons I decided to pay again was because I liked the new companions.

 

But just a week after I pay, BW says they are nerfing companions (which was one of the deciding factors for me to sub again), and they give less than 24 hour notice of the coming nerf.

 

I feel like- wow man... really? I just paid you...

 

Hoping for the best though

[/i]

[SenileBomber]

snip

 

I cannot think of a single person that actually complained about Companions as they were at KotFE launch. Who on earth is BioWare listening to to make this change?

[bluroq]

I think they ( devs) should be focusing on the important issues in this game rather than nerfing the companions...

why should they, you can waste so much time tinkering with numbers, your boss will actually believe youre doing something!

[MasterFeign]

I realise no one cares for it, but this is a victory for open world pvp, and I am glad for this nerf...

[BumBoi]

I just re-subbed after a couple year break a few weeks ago. I have absolutely been loving game and having a blast. The companion changes were a large part of why I re-subbed and was giving the game another try. One of the things I've enjoyed the most is being able to play more of the content solo or with a friend. I enjoy group content/ play as well but don't like always being forced to do so, especially if no one is on or interested in older content. The improved companions also made it so much more fun to work on alts. I had been planning on playing at least one of each of class.

 

I won't be renewing my sub after this change. Bioware you've once again listened to a very vocal minority and made sweeping changes that will hurt the game and your profits.

 

this is the same for me I'll give it chance after the patch but if they have made companions as weak as they were before the kotfe I won't bother with a re sub

Edited November 16, 2015 by BumBoi

[Katahn]

That is currently slated to be fixed in 4.0.3.

 

-eric

 

Well ok then. Improved threat will help 1-64 but my healer characters will still have trouble with the Star Fortresses on heroic. My tanks could do them quite handily (if very slowly) with a companion healing and never really take much damage - so a nerf to healing on companions should at least make it interesting again.

[DarkAnnihilation]

so lemme see if I follow this correctly, you have nerfed my companions healing without fixing the bug that gives them 0 armor rating and 0 damage mitigation....well done:mad:

[Quraswren]

That's irrelevant. I don't care, nor do I think Bioware can care what seriously bad players deal with. If you read Eric's post he said that the companions had better output than GOOD players. You aren't about to tell me that pre-4.0 companions could outheal a good Sorc healer, unless you're just divorced from the truth.

 

Then they weren't all that good were they?

I'm telling you a good geared companion preformed a most players in heroics and FPs if you know how to gear and manage them.

 

He didn't say some, he said:

 

and where are these numbers? But I'll talk from my in game expereince: My geared 220/224 toons heals about the same as my level 50 companion. Should a level 50 companion heal that well. You bet it should. Should it heal better than some 208 geared skilled player? You bet it should.

 

Same for many gamers and their healing numbers. Should a 216 geared gamers heal better or worse than a levl 30 companion which is easy to get? I'd wager their very similar except a companion wont miss a global. they wont miss a CD so yes, in many ways they will always heal better even if equally balanced. It's the nature of the design. They might even heal better than a well geared skilled toon for the same reason. They don't miss a beat.

 

BW gets no points for that bogus statement of skills vs unskilled and who was doing. That would be like taking the word of how much DPS you should do on a target dummy and that is what you should do on Styrak. It just doesn't pan out like that when put into action.

 

Honestly, if people see a big difference, then they should probably get some practice and work on their skills.

 

OR BW screwed up and should have left well enough alone. Another game feature not broken but damn lets try to fix it anyway. Especially in a part of the game that an OP companion didn't make a hill of beans about anyway. SM content that was never going to be a challenge because everyone is suppose to easily finish it and some 4 year old heroics 2's you were going to have to grind over and over and over anyway in the new grind alliance system. As if that needed to be more tedious.

 

You will see this change affect gamers and it wont be good. It will affect the time to finish in heroics and for solo star fortress it will affect challenge and time to finish.

 

But hey, thats the goal right? 2 things to do at max level need more time to completion. Solo needed more time added to them anyway as we as star fortress. Those good companions made that content to easily done. The grind a bit trivial. Can't have that when nothing new is planed till 2016.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Quraswren

[branmakmuffin]

superior how so?

 

I doubt it. My HK-51 was in full ultimate gear.

How exactly did you get your HK in "ultimate gear," since the main piece in ultimate comm gear (like crystal gear now) was slot locked and none of the comm gear was was made to go into droid parts? Pretty sure the best you could do for a droid was the 192 Yavin gear (the rating of elite gear).

[Aries]

Hey Eric,

 

While your swinging that nerf bat around, why don't you nerf the companion influence grind? 250,000 is absolutely ridiculous. We're talking 1hr+ of play time to click hundreds Lvl 1 & Lvl 2 green gifts, followed by farming 3K+ of common data crystals to achieve influence level 50; per companion. Alts? forget it, you get the message. I simply don't have time for this crap.

 

This companion influence grind should have been legacy wide, that I've heard from countless people on my server.

 

Nerf the crafting crit, mission efficiency, and or healing / power abilities, I care not.

 

Thank god Battlefront 2015 releases at midnight tonight, specially if I don't approve of 4.0.2.

[Jadescythe]

I cannot think of a single person that actually complained about Companions as they were at KotFE launch. Who on earth is BioWare listening to to make this change?

 

Hi, you must be new here. There were at least 3 active threads about nerfing companions in GD at all times up until this weekend.

[MasterFeign]

Hey Eric,

 

While your swinging that nerf bat around, why don't you nerf the companion influence grind? 250,000 is absolutely ridiculous. We're talking 1hr+ of play time to click hundreds Lvl 1 & Lvl 2 green gifts, followed by farming 3K+ of common data crystals to achieve influence level 50; per companion. Alts? forget it, you get the message. I simply don't have time for this crap.

 

This companion influence grind should have been legacy wide, that I've heard from countless people on my server.

 

Nerf the crafting crit, mission efficiency, and or healing / power abilities, I care not.

 

Thank god Battlefront 2015 releases at midnight tonight, specially if I don't approve of 4.0.2.

 

The majority of companions are purely cosmetic now, so there isn't really a point in making each one to 50 to begin with.

[tmwfte]

First off, Makeb has bolster on it.

 

No. It doesn't. The Makeb GSI bolster was removed when level sync came in with 4.0.

[Psychopyro]

How exactly did you get your HK in "ultimate gear," since the main piece in ultimate comm gear (like crystal gear now) was slot locked and none of the comm gear was was made to go into droid parts? Pretty sure the best you could do for a droid was the 192 Yavin gear (the rating of elite gear).

 

You could RE the raid gear equivalent armoring which crafted would not be slot locked.

[Quraswren]

Hey Eric,

 

While your swinging that nerf bat around, why don't you nerf the companion influence grind? 250,000 is absolutely ridiculous. We're talking 1hr+ of play time to click hundreds Lvl 1 & Lvl 2 green gifts, followed by farming 3K+ of common data crystals to achieve influence level 50; per companion. Alts? forget it, you get the message. I simply don't have time for this crap.

 

So true. They turn a 10K click grind fest into a 250K grind fest and then didn't make giving those companion gifts faster like say, decorations.

 

Ugh thats painful.

 

This companion influence grind should have been legacy wide, that I've heard from countless people on my server.

 

Nerf the crafting crit, mission efficiency, and or healing / power abilities, I care not.

 

Thank god Battlefront 2015 releases at midnight tonight, specially if I don't approve of 4.0.2.

 

Yes and yes

[knowmyname]

Hey folks,

 

If you haven’t yet seen the 4.0.2 patch notes, you can view them here. There are some patch notes that we wanted to highlight and talk about specifically.

 

• Companion base stats have been reduced.
  
• Companion damage and healing output has been reduced.
  

 

Some of you will certainly ask, why the need to nerf Companions? This is something that we definitely saw the community be divided on, and it was good for us to hear feedback from both sides. Ultimately, this decision came down to our own goals for Companions, along with data on how they were performing. What we saw in those instances is that Companions, simply put, were just way too good. Their healing and damage output could be greater than that of a very skilled player with a fully maximized character. In order for you to understand why we are making these changes, we thought it best to explain our goals for Companions in Fallen Empire.

 

In KotFE, with a large focus on going back to story, we wanted to make sure that all of our story content was accessible to all of our players. The power that Companions bring to the table, definitely played a part in that accessibility. Companions, from a combat perspective, should complement and provide support to your character, not overshadow them. However, in looking at how strong Companions are, we may have gone a bit too far in that direction. Simply put, while playing through much of the game, there are a lot of situations in regular combat where it is practically impossible for you to be killed if you have a healing Companion. Although this can be fun for a time, this wasn’t our goal. Companions should be strong, they should fill any role you need, but they should not make your actual gameplay be overshadowed by how strong they are.

 

So with 4.0.2 we have brought their effectiveness down quite a bit, let’s talk about some of the specifics here:

• There isn’t a flat % that healing was reduced by. Effectiveness reduction varies greatly depending on level, Influence, level sync, etc. That being said, the healer companions are still quite competitive, but they no longer trivialize content that was meant to be challenging.
  
• Healing power increase by Influence level has been increased. That means that as you scale up Influence levels with a Companion they will get more powerful per level than before. This helps to offset the base healing reduction a bit as you gain influence with your companion.
  

 

We did want to make some improvements to tanking Companions:

• We increased the threat generated by tank companions, so they should be able to hold the attention of enemy NPCs better than before.
  
• We fixed an issue involving the tank companion’s mass grapple ability, it will no longer pull in enemies that are out of combat.
  

 

Will your Companions feel a bit weaker than they did when KotFE launched? Yes. But believe me they will still carry their weight and fill the role you need them to in combat. All that we ask is that you log in tomorrow, and check the changes yourself. Play around with the Companions in each role and let us know your feedback. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

did you fix the issues with companion Defense, Absorb, Shield ratings stats and also Tech power and Force Power?

influence rank 50 pierce on a 65 operative. senya and scorpio are the same.

http://mrdeids.com/Liquor/Images/SWTOR/SWTOR_4-0_Companion_Stats_Pierce_Influence_50.png

 

the defense, absorb, and shield ratings are 0 due to no shield, focus, generator on the companion and to include no gear. it doesnt take into account how gear impacts a tanks tanking ability. an operative healer should not have better defense, absorb and shield ratings than a tank companion. the tank stance stats are the same as healers and dps companion stats.

 

4.0 companions are glass cannons. high HP, big burst dps but melt during burst dps phases. pre-4.0 tank companions are laughing at these weak post-4.0 companions

[Kajoran]

Why does the nerf have to be before the tank fix? Couldn't it be delayed at least until other things are fixed so at least you gain something at the same time? Nerfing first while already having a weak tank just makes it extra hard. And also since influence will be more important, the fix for courting and the romance change for gifts will be more important. Anyway just don't see why the rush to nerf before fixes can also be put in.

[Anaesha]

So true. They turn a 10K click grind fest into a 250K grind fest and then didn't make giving those companion gifts faster like say, decorations.

 

Ugh thats painful.

 

 

 

Yes and yes

 

I have to admit they could have tweaked the comp gifts some so that they would give more influence.

[KrazieFox]

If I will not be able to solo H2 Fortress tomorrow then I am leaving the game. I want to play solo, let me play solo.

 

As a fellow Solo player I think as of tomorrow swtor will go from being THE most Solo - Friendly mmo back to what it was like before - but now due to Level Sync the option to outlevel hard content in order to play it will no longer be available - thus there will be so much of the game that will be unavailable to some paid subscribers.

 

I will see how things are after tomorrow's update before cancelling my subs.

[NoFishing]

Healing power increase by Influence level has been increased. That means that as you scale up Influence levels with a Companion they will get more powerful per level than before. This helps to offset the base healing reduction a bit as you gain influence with your companion.

 

This is the exact opposite of what needed to happen. A new player just starting out, especially one starting at 60, wont have a bank of credits or comms to buy gifts with to get their companion influence up. Nor will they have the experience with control, interrupt, and defensive abilities. Or the baseline of presence that legendary players have. In short, this is the group that needs a relatively more powerful companion, and you're inflicting the biggest nerf on them.

[mrsrachelm]

so lemme see if I follow this correctly, you have nerfed my companions healing without fixing the bug that gives them 0 armor rating and 0 damage mitigation....well done:mad:

 

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. That seems bass-ackwards doesn't it? I bet everyone ends up all using companions in DPS mode now because they really have little choice between the healing nerf-with-a-bazooka and tanking companions holding aggro better on no armor rating...bahahahahaha. What could go wrong?

 

Having "fun" now, folks? Enjoy that grind....

 

I've subbed since day one with a small period unsubbed due to illness and, if after giving this new weekly heroics grind a try with nerfed and under-armored companions a try only to have it feel like a slog, I will let my current sub run out and move on. That idea saddens me but there are some great single-player games coming out out and even some older MMO's like ESO and Final Fantasy Online that are still fun. I am hoping against hope that the nerf isn't going to impact my ability to play as a casual mainly solo player too horribly but if it does....I'm gone.

Edited November 16, 2015 by mrsrachelm

[NRieh]

We fixed an issue involving the tank companion’s mass grapple ability, it will no longer pull in enemies that are out of combat.

But...but...you mean...someone had finally decided to give us back a ranged CC-friendly pull?!

No. Can't be. Too good to be true. You're almost make this patch sound like an improvement. I'm almost intrigued.

 

Increasing the output per affection level is no good though, it's a highway to grind. More threat = good, no doubt with that one.

[Anaesha]

But...but...you mean...someone had finally decided to give us back a ranged CC-friendly pull?!

No. Can't be. Too good to be true. You're almost make this patch sound like an improvement. I'm almost intrigued.

 

Increasing the output per affection level is no good though, it's a highway to grind. More threat = good, no doubt with that one.

 

Not that it would do any good. Your tank pulls the mobs and because of the bug that isn't getting fixed until 4.0.3 he dies almost instantly.

[Katahn]

did you fix the issues with companion Defense, Absorb, Shield ratings stats and also Tech power and Force Power?

influence rank 50 pierce on a 65 operative. senya and scorpio are the same.

http://mrdeids.com/Liquor/Images/SWTOR/SWTOR_4-0_Companion_Stats_Pierce_Influence_50.png

 

the defense, absorb, and shield ratings are 0 due to no shield, focus, generator on the companion and to include no gear. it doesnt take into account how gear impacts a tanks tanking ability. an operative healer should not have better defense, absorb and shield ratings than a tank companion. the tank stance stats are the same as healers and dps companion stats.

 

4.0 companions are glass cannons. high HP, big burst dps but melt during burst dps phases. pre-4.0 tank companions are laughing at these weak post-4.0 companions

 

Tank fixes go in 4.0.3 he said (either in this thread or another, there's so many I've lost track.)

 

And I'm with you, this will hurt my healer's (an operative) ability to do level 65 heroic content a great deal. I need a durable companion tank even if I don't need to heal them just to keep mobs backs pointed at me for stabbing purposes. Fortunately for level-synched worlds I'm still fine, but soloing as a healer is never what you'd call "fast".

[DarkAnnihilation]

Currently at level 63 Lana in healing stance has 23.16% damage reduction and 4799 armor rating, on my 65 lana in same healing stance has 0% damage reduction and 0 armor rating. Hardly noticeable obviously with the great heals(some say OP) currently being done, however with the nerf to heals that 23.16% is all of a sudden probably going to be noticeable. My question is why if you have not fixed an important feature like damage mitigation would you rush to "fix" heals. Would it not make more sense to reserve the fix to heals until you have also fixed the issue of damage mitigation?