Companion Changes in 4.0.2

[heythereqt]

I really feel like Bioware did a cash grab. They made something they knew was powerful. Got people to talk about it, and bring other people in, got their money. And then removed it to please whatever a-holes were ************ in the first place.

 

Not the first time this has happened. Maybe the devs made a mistake, but this is all eerily similar to the slot machine cash grab about a year ago.

[sjscorpiomark]

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.

 

they are saying level at least one of your companions to rank 50 or else you will have a sub-par companion. i.e. spend a ton of credits to buy your comps gifts (or dedicate time with one comp for all convo's) to get them to 50 to be just slightly worse than they were pre-4.0 instead of completely screwed.

 

While I agree comps should never be better than a skilled player and were OP in 4.0, I do think they should be balanced to be equal to an average player in their role and influence level.

 

A level 25 character is not going to have a rank 50 influence companion so why does that level 25 character get a sub-par partner during his leveling experience? shouldn't influence not come into play in the ability level of the comp? influence should only apply a bonus on top of a base level equal to a competent player. A level 1 fresh companion should be equal to a slightly bad player, a rank 25 companion equal to or slightly better than an average player and a rank 50 comp EQUAL to a skilled player? as a characters levels he gets stronger and improves in his skills so too should the comps, which they do, but I think the base level before influence or level syncing should be balanced against an average human player.

 

If I understand the original post they did not want comps to replace skilled players, but why not? they take a member slot in groups why should they not be as effective as a real player? if you took the time/effort/money to raise your comps rank to 50 they are the best they can be so they should absolutely be equal to a highly skilled human player right?

[Noyjitat]

I will soon be posting more of my frustrated feedback momentarily. The server lagged so bad I died during the exarch terminal phase.

[Leinad-s]

[if it's a chaotic piece of bantha poo I'm sorry it's 3 am in my time-zone hooked on too many coffee and lack of my ToR fix]

 

I normally don't post on official forums. I really don't because there is simple mindset regarding money and MMO's - the hardcore base that takes all amounts of sludge dumped their way and praise it as the next coming of the Messiah is THE most important for a company. They provide steady flow of income which is good. And lets be realistic ToR was in a state of agony for a long time. But in light of the new movie all SW related material got profitable. Hence KotFE.

But back to the topic.

I first rolled with ToR 4 years ago. I remember how grindy it was back then and playing without my friends was a pain. A real pain. I HATE GRINDING that's what pushed me away from WoW and ToR before - grind, more grind in the words of a peon from W3. 4.0 was a god-send. Story is here, I can play solo without much problem. Gearing was easier due to heroics; leveling was nice and smooth maybe a little too smooth but if I wanted a challenge I would delve into Flashpoints Ops this kind of stuff. I haven't soloed a single Tactical due to it being too time-consuming. I got couple of my friends to play too because it was easier to level, to have some abilities to feel nice and powerful. Then we delved into Tacticals - we did some in pack of 2. With 2 healing comps (also dualing as tanks due to their health pools) we were able to do a couple of them. It was fun. Our designated healer is not fully geared nor is he fully leveled so companions were a nice stand-in. We could sit down play some, wait for another friend to come online play some more have loads of fun. Level him, get him better gear so we could do Flashpoints with a full group of 4 (another friend got into leveling frenzy so we had him too). Waiting to get nice gear to do some more serious content.

ALL BECAUSE OF COMPANIONS. They made it possible (in their OP state) to make grind a fun experience where you could feel the power of being a HERO. I even leveled some alts to stand in for a dps or healer (i'm rolling with a jugg tank). We weren't even sure on what to play (spec-wise) so we could test (with a sin friend) it out, whether to go full tank, offtank etc on Flashpoints with 2 healing comps. It was FUN. And still rewarding. Again all because of COMPANIONS.

I played through other class stories - because I could go nice and smooth into them without putting in nights and nights of hardcore grind to get to next planet. It was FUN a solo experience akin to a SP RPG, with the benefit of talking to, grouping with other players. FUN INCARNATE. Truth be told - I would probably drop my subscription around december and return with new KoTFE chapters (due to finals and work), so i'm not the target customer still my friends were debating for a sub (apart for 2 which resubbed) so we could have a fun little group to do stuff with, change classes with ease and so forth so I could stay for a long time no dropping.

And now, because some guys want to have a challenging gameplay, so you need to know your rotations 100%, have a grindfest to get good gear, know bosses like your mother herself... Aren't ops for that ? Hard Flashpoints ?

NOPE. They want it to become new reality, because they already did that.

I understand Bioware's reasoning. They know that there isn't much end-game, so burning through story and flashpoints, heroics is not desireable - shorter subsrictions - less money. But hell if BW plans on releasing new story content isn't it better to broaden a target audience ? If your work holds against other games IT WILL GENERATE MONEY. No need to make it time consuming to claim money - it's a cheap move. So final - give back op companions. Please.

 

tl;dr

OP comps = more fun less grind.

My solution - make heroics also come in two variations - normal for comp and PC and hard for groups.

 

There I did it my little essay.

[silvershadows]

Well, I just finished a Heroic Star Fortress.

 

I used my Sith Juggernaut, who is wearing a mix of 220 and 216 gear, with one 208 armoring in her boots. She has no set bonuses, and is wearing pvp relics.

 

I used Pierce (set to heals) as my companion. He is influence rank 34.

 

I chose this pairing because I figured it would best approximate what a player in 'decent' gear would have, and I didn't find rank 34 influence hard to get to at all, so I consider it an 'average' influence ranking. I did take video, which I will post if people really want to see it, but otherwise I will just reiterate my experience.

 

The first thing I noticed was that Pierce had 14k hp less than I do, whereas before he had about 20k MORE than I did.

 

I entered the star fortress, activated the meta-computer, and got my buffs. I noticed no appreciable difference between yesterday and today as far as the ease of trash pulls.

 

The first paladin I encountered was the Thundering Blast sort, and I had no difficulty with him at all. I just kept him interrupted and beat his face in. I did lose more health than I typically would have before - I used saber reflect and enraged defense for DCD's, ended the fight ~40% health or so.

 

The Praetorian wasn't any more difficult than he was yesterday. Easy peasy.

 

The second Paladin was the Warrior type, and he killed me - it wasn't fast, it was more of a war of attrition, but this is the first time this character has died against this type of Paladin. However, I had only used my class DCD's, didn't pop Heroic Moment or any of the Alliance abilities, so I went back and used Hylo's damage-reduction grenade and popped Unity, and he went down pretty handily.

 

The double Zakuul Knight pull didn't feel any different than yesterday, except that I had to use all my DCD's, whereas yesterday I only used Saber Reflect and Enraged Defense.

 

Then things kind of took a different turn. Around the reactor core - room one was no problem. Room two, Pierce started taking a lot of damage and was yelling that he was dying, and I ended up at ~20 percent health or so because he hardly healed me (he was too busy healing himself, lol) by the time I cleared the room. Room three - I died three times.

 

That was the pull tha thad always given me the most trouble before, so I had expected an issue, but I hadn't expected to die three times. I ended up clearing the room by popping Sana-Rae's aoe ability after the 4 mob add wave came in, and just didn't bother using the item on the Exarch himself until I had both of the ones I needed. It was a little hairy, but got it down doing it that way.

 

The Exarch definitely was hurting me a lot more than yesterday, but I popped heroic moment immediately on entering combat, leapt in, hit saber reflect, THEN dropped the taunting gun turret, then started dropping my heroic moment abilities one after another. I have them all, and he was pretty toasted by the time I finished using them, but yet he still hit me with a couple big smacks and gave me a panic attack when I hit 10 percent health. Thankfully, I was able to use Oggurobb's healing ability just before I died, and finished him off.

 

My conclusion is that these will be very hard if not impossible now for some players, and definitely some classes. There were several times where I would have flat out died if I had been a sentinel or a marauder, or any class without a DCD half as strong as Enraged Defense. The nerf to companions is a bit out of hand. They need perhaps 10-15 percent of their heals back.

[Artaniz]

Here is my feedback if you are actually reading thi still Eric which i doubt.

 

I have unsubbed , and unless at least a sizable portion of this nerf is undone i will not be coming back , as well as i have cancelled all the accounts i was paying for for my wife and some family who cant as easily afford it as i can.,

 

Now seriously *** is wrong with you BW ? why could you not do this nerf in smaller increments over a few patch cycles ???????

 

You left the game this way for a month you could have nerfed these comps 15 % at a time over 4 patches to find a happy spot , but nope instead you just id it all at once and made them worthless. How can you be so dense ? How can you possibly be so stupid as to not realize that this was going to cause you a major PR issue ??

 

Why could you not do this incremental ? Why can you guys never seem to actually play-test anything before implementation so that instead we end up getting screwed by your ineptitude at testing the damn game before you release it to us ?

 

You honestly deserve the crappy reputation you have in the market today , just look at the piss poor way this entire thing has been handled. I truly hope you revert part of this change and find a happy middle ground. But we all know it wont happen , hell we will be lucky to even get another word on it from anyone at BW , just stick your heads in the sand and pretend nothing happened while many of us leave the game.

[Chazcon]

Total ********. You are a professional game company. The 4.0 expansion was your design, and you had plenty of time to vet out and balance it. The fact that 1) companions came out of it so OP and 2) you adjust AFTER release by just whacking stats shows that you have no damn business running a game company.

 

Kotfe - destroyed crafting, destroyed companions and destroyed your player base. Nice work!

[Deathsightofhell]

try not being 2-5 levels behind what you are doing... then see what happens. Do you really think a level 50 toon should be talking lvl 55 stuff?

 

try a level 65 , doing the 3rd core ? that is a level 50 comp. The SF is alot harder then they use to be, now having comp set to heal is 100% useless, tank compion can hold aggro for awhile for you but will eventually die by all the mobs if u don't out dpsin' all the stuff alone, please tell me how that is good for an mode which is Heroic 2+ which should allow player to use compians instead of players? heck go to a low level sync planet and watch ur comp act like a Noob healers , when they are 50 Aff? That TOTALLY fair right? no, not really so they ruin the comp flex usefullness, heck a Healer Class will be force to get a player as damage comp suck even worst then tank stance one

 

 

and as I said im going for legendary status, and you can still hurt character that are 5 level max higher then you, So yes a level 50 should be able to do 55 stuff, as they can still hit them.

[DurdensWrath]

Well, I just finished a Heroic Star Fortress.

 

I used my Sith Juggernaut, who is wearing a mix of 220 and 216 gear, with one 208 armoring in her boots. She has no set bonuses, and is wearing pvp relics.

 

I used Pierce (set to heals) as my companion. He is influence rank 34.

 

I chose this pairing because I figured it would best approximate what a player in 'decent' gear would have, and I didn't find rank 34 influence hard to get to at all, so I consider it an 'average' influence ranking. I did take video, which I will post if people really want to see it, but otherwise I will just reiterate my experience.

 

The first thing I noticed was that Pierce had 14k hp less than I do, whereas before he had about 20k MORE than I did.

 

I entered the star fortress, activated the meta-computer, and got my buffs. I noticed no appreciable difference between yesterday and today as far as the ease of trash pulls.

 

The first paladin I encountered was the Thundering Blast sort, and I had no difficulty with him at all. I just kept him interrupted and beat his face in. I did lose more health than I typically would have before - I used saber reflect and enraged defense for DCD's, ended the fight ~40% health or so.

 

The Praetorian wasn't any more difficult than he was yesterday. Easy peasy.

 

The second Paladin was the Warrior type, and he killed me - it wasn't fast, it was more of a war of attrition, but this is the first time this character has died against this type of Paladin. However, I had only used my class DCD's, didn't pop Heroic Moment or any of the Alliance abilities, so I went back and used Hylo's damage-reduction grenade and popped Unity, and he went down pretty handily.

 

The double Zakuul Knight pull didn't feel any different than yesterday, except that I had to use all my DCD's, whereas yesterday I only used Saber Reflect and Enraged Defense.

 

Then things kind of took a different turn. Around the reactor core - room one was no problem. Room two, Pierce started taking a lot of damage and was yelling that he was dying, and I ended up at ~20 percent health or so because he hardly healed me (he was too busy healing himself, lol) by the time I cleared the room. Room three - I died three times.

 

That was the pull tha thad always given me the most trouble before, so I had expected an issue, but I hadn't expected to die three times. I ended up clearing the room by popping Sana-Rae's aoe ability after the 4 mob add wave came in, and just didn't bother using the item on the Exarch himself until I had both of the ones I needed. It was a little hairy, but got it down doing it that way.

 

The Exarch definitely was hurting me a lot more than yesterday, but I popped heroic moment immediately on entering combat, leapt in, hit saber reflect, THEN dropped the taunting gun turret, then started dropping my heroic moment abilities one after another. I have them all, and he was pretty toasted by the time I finished using them, but yet he still hit me with a couple big smacks and gave me a panic attack when I hit 10 percent health. Thankfully, I was able to use Oggurobb's healing ability just before I died, and finished him off.

 

My conclusion is that these will be very hard if not impossible now for some players, and definitely some classes. There were several times where I would have flat out died if I had been a sentinel or a marauder, or any class without a DCD half as strong as Enraged Defense. The nerf to companions is a bit out of hand. They need perhaps 10-15 percent of their heals back.

 

The problem is, that you used the buffs. Star Fortress was hard, but doable solo. It is nigh impossible now.

 

They nerfed companions 75%. 30% would have been a good starting point, 50% at the worst.

 

Bioware sucks at game management. I think I was too generous when I said they got their programmers from DeVry.

[Noyjitat]

Okay now my server crashed and I want to atleast finish a star fortress before I post all my feedback. But for now I think you guys should rollback this patch and do a playtest with more reasonable and low % nerf's until you can find something that's fair and then push it to live. Because frankly that's what the test server is for.

[Shayddow]

The idea here is to presumably bring in new customers etc. The "nerf" to companions pretty much accomplished the opposite - case in point -

I can still do heroics on planets where I have legacy 50 skills and perks to back me up. But on the other server I don't have all that, and I was struggling to get through the first heroic on Taris as a pub JG. <died like about 7 times total before finishing it> <I still got thru Coruscant and Tython just fine, because I pretty much know the class. But... someone new coming in? They aren't going to be able to do it, and rather than attracting new subscribers, this will cause them not to continue.

When I first came in, I came in as F2P, liked the game, and then subscribed. But it won't be easy for you guys to bring in new people after the movie hits next month if they come in and just see a huge nerfbat over everything.

[silvershadows]

The problem is, that you used the buffs. Star Fortress was hard, but doable solo. It is nigh impossible now.

 

They nerfed companions 75%. 30% would have been a good starting point, 50% at the worst.

 

Bioware sucks at game management. I think I was too generous when I said they got their programmers from DeVry.

 

I did use the buffs, but to be honest, getting your alliance guys to rank 10 isn't that big of a deal.

 

However, even though I was able to complete the Star Fortress, I realize that I am not an 'average' player. I'm not the best, but I consider myself to be above average-good, depending on the day I could easily recognize several places where a player not as familiar with their class as I am might have died, or even a good player of another class that doesn't have as much survivability as my Vengeance juggernaut.

 

I do think it would have been fine to nerf companions a bit, but not to this extent. Many players will now find content they used to be able to do nearly impossible.

[Artaniz]

Hope to provide more feedback on companions later, but for now:

 

THANK YOU for fixing the "no armor" bug in this patch! If you hadn't done that you would have had a disaster on your hands.

 

Everything formerly soloable is still soloable, including heroic star fortress. The big differences now:

 

1. Companions do not die immediately if they get aggro, since they now have actual armor and damage reduction.

 

2. Tank companions are viable.

 

3. Dps companions still hit very hard, but running with 2 dps I do notice killing stuff is slower.

 

4. Heal companions are not God-Mode any more. You have to move out of stuff on Heroic Star Fortress, use your CC's, use your DC's, and use self heals if you have them.

 

Right now the biggest piece of feedback I have for Bioware is on the healing companion:

 

It's that channeled, no-cooldown heal that used to be the big problem. You've massively nerfed it, which I expected. However, it seems that too often the companion is not using that ability when they should be using it. They should spam it when other heals are on cooldown.

 

Other than that, this nerf was NOWHERE near as bad as I thought it would be. And it really is nice that tanks don't just die pitifully any more.

 

 

Idontbelieveyou.gif No seriously i tested this patch with a rnk 32 lana the details are in multiple posts ive made , these new companions are worthless . Now maybe your companion is rnk 50 and maybe you have all legacy and datacrons for presence i dont , but still you shouldn't need them to be rnk 50 with all presence to be moderately effective , they should be beast mode by then otherwise its just pointless to give them those ranks , just make us grind the 250 k influence to get to rnk useful so we can see we are being bent over from the start.

[_NovaBlast_]

Absolutely! It certainly may be a bit more challenging than before but you can complete them. The intent is that you can complete any [Heroic 2] with your Companion counting as one of the two. If you find this isn't true for any Heroics tomorrow, let us know.

 

-eric

 

What about people who like story mode content ... how much will the difficulty be increased ? Saying oh yea well you can complete it but its equivalent to hard mode now ...is not a good thing.

 

 

So Eric .... your views on "little more challenging".... points to above statement .... and that's not even mentioning the star fortress.....which are anything but fun. to start with are now just goingto vbe avoided.....thanks for telling me how i should have fun

Edited November 18, 2015 by _NovaBlast_

[Ghisallo]

Companions still aren't right.

 

There doesn't seem to be a difference between a lvl 1 influence and 50, it's seems to be about 10% difference across all specs. That's garbage for the time investment. The DPS stance is not all that great, never was since 4.0 hit, tank stance is broken at 65 with a bug that will be fixed at some point. Healing is about the only thing the companions did well.

 

Now it seems they are simply some off heals. I guess it's back to dress up doll, but then again, the customization sucks on these new companions.

 

Well admittedly I can only speak of healing comps, don't use em in dps mode, but thus far it is more challenging but just did a Star Fortress with little trouble than before. this time I just actually had to <gasp> interrupt attacks of the bosses and such and use some CC. basically al I had to do was play the game the exact same way we played it before 4.0...

[Ghisallo]

try a level 65 , doing the 3rd core ? that is a level 50 comp. The SF is alot harder then they use to be, now having comp set to heal is 100% useless, tank compion can hold aggro for awhile for you but will eventually die by all the mobs if u don't out dpsin' all the stuff alone, please tell me how that is good for an mode which is Heroic 2+ which should allow player to use compians instead of players? heck go to a low level sync planet and watch ur comp act like a Noob healers , when they are 50 Aff? That TOTALLY fair right? no, not really so they ruin the comp flex usefullness, heck a Healer Class will be force to get a player as damage comp suck even worst then tank stance one

 

 

and as I said im going for legendary status, and you can still hurt character that are 5 level max higher then you, So yes a level 50 should be able to do 55 stuff, as they can still hit them.

 

 

Really? I just completed one on my JK, Lana healing... she is only rank 18 atm. Did I have to interrupt and CC? yepper but it was more than doable... and no I don't have any raid set bonus gear on and stuff like that. So yes you can use companions and not players. Even then on killing the last boss Lana had a total HPS of 1231 and an effective HPS of 1125. So she even overhealed it. If you want I will share a screenshot of the parse, just in case you want to challenge me on it.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Darkbloom]

Idontbelieveyou.gif No seriously i tested this patch with a rnk 32 lana the details are in multiple posts ive made , these new companions are worthless . Now maybe your companion is rnk 50 and maybe you have all legacy and datacrons for presence i dont , but still you shouldn't need them to be rnk 50 with all presence to be moderately effective , they should be beast mode by then otherwise its just pointless to give them those ranks , just make us grind the 250 k influence to get to rnk useful so we can see we are being bent over from the start.

 

What class are you playing?

 

Some classes have it much easier than others.

 

IMO, ranged classes with self healing and awesome crowd control (Merc/Sorc) should have it the easiest. I would bet (don't know for sure) that marauders and vanguard dps will have it the hardest.

 

I do not believe I can solo heroic star fortress with a marauder unless I abuse heroic moment or abuse the alliance gadgets.

 

So what class do you play?

[wolfyde]

Will let my subscription run out, I have no desire to grind and slog through this tedious and boring (downtime laden) combat. The engine is awful, always has been, the story content is the only thing Bioware does right. The companions being OP made the combat part of the game not a chore.

 

^ pretty much this. Has it become impossible to do the heroics? No, but it sure takes longer now, and that for me is a serious problem. If BW's design requires me to rinse-repeat the same content for my Alliance, I expect that content to be quick and with a minimum of downtime.

This game is, at its core, no more than a very generic and fairly mediocre hotkey mmo, that survives by virtue of its Star Wars license, and as such mechanically not interesting enough to keep my attention when forced into boring moments of downtime.

So my opinion in short; the only thing BW added with this nerf is tedium.

[HammyString]

sorry as a solo player i did think the companions were just a bit op but i feel the nerf was way to much considering when i go into a group for flash points and you have that system so messed up that all of us are dps and of varying lvls that when some one drops we could use one of are healer companions to heal not only have you manage to make flash points unbalanced you have also made it so the companions are too weak to be of any real use in heroic 2s were I like to solo there weaker now then they were before the Knights of the fallen empire exp if you feel the need to tone them down do it just a bit not as much as you have please

[Artaniz]

What class are you playing?

 

Some classes have it much easier than others.

 

IMO, ranged classes with self healing and awesome crowd control (Merc/Sorc) should have it the easiest. I would bet (don't know for sure) that marauders and vanguard dps will have it the hardest.

 

I do not believe I can solo heroic star fortress with a marauder unless I abuse heroic moment or abuse the alliance gadgets.

 

So what class do you play?

 

Im playing heals spec jedi sage , as i have stated in many posts. It was more worth my time to put the companion away and just shield myself and aoe things as the comp just took to much damage and required constant spam heals.

 

DPS mode couldn't kill one silver mob before i killed them all and i am no dps spec i am a lazy sorc spamming forcequake.

 

Heals , well i couldn't even tell that the comp was healing so ill leave it at that.

[Crazygenes]

Yeah, doing heroics on Alderaan just now and... nope.

Sure, companions were on the OP side, but dang it, why such an atomic strength nerf?

[jakeobione]

It seems like all the patch did was destroy the middle and low end game IE= People with low influence(1-20), and mid gear 180-200. Also basically just kept high end about the same, marginal change.

 

Pretty much what I expected a nerf to do. Bioware doesn't know ho to balance anything.

[Ghisallo]

Yeah, doing heroics on Alderaan just now and... nope.

Sure, companions were on the OP side, but dang it, why such an atomic strength nerf?

 

I really think people have to stop and think... what did your companion, pre-4.0 do before you got it really well geared? Stop comparing it to the first 4.0 version... compare it to the pre-4.0 version. Then look at the companion performance as it geared. Not apply that progression from gear to affection. THEN decide how off it is.

[Darkbloom]

Im playing heals spec jedi sage , as i have stated in many posts. It was more worth my time to put the companion away and just shield myself and aoe things as the comp just took to much damage and required constant spam heals.

 

DPS mode couldn't kill one silver mob before i killed them all and i am no dps spec i am a lazy sorc spamming forcequake.

 

Heals , well i couldn't even tell that the comp was healing so ill leave it at that.

 

OK I understand what's happening.

 

The dps and tank companions now have actual armor, so that's an improvement. However, the tanks still don't have shields.

 

I think soloing as a healer with a companion dps will take a lot of micromanagement because you would have to use lots of CC, and pretty much tell your companion exactly who to attack and which abilities to use. The companion must always be attacking weakest enemies first, not breaking CC (they have an ability that breaks CC all the time if you're not careful), etc. I mean it's possible, but it would be really, really tough.

 

I'm talking heroic star fortress here.

 

It's really not that people are lying--it's that DPS player + Heal companion is still the strongest combo right now.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

So, apparently you're either a liar, completely full of it, or out of the loop. You might want to have a talk with the devs, because once again those mouth breathing fools have nerfed the bottom out of something.

 

Heh interesting choice of flame from someone who seems enraged because they nerfed something that was needed and now seemingly must struggle with the most basic of gaming difficulties ( else why get enraged? ).