ERIC: Founder Unsub'g - BW broke it's promise to casual players

[Pavijan]

That is going to depend a lot on character and legacy. I'm a casual player. I will occasionally PUG a tactical but it is rare. I won't PUG hard mode or ops because I don't want to be a burden on the other people in the group. I don't have most of the datacrons but do have all class story completed and had the original companions story lines completed prior to 4.0.

 

I ran the heroics for Ord Mantell, Coruscant, and Repulbic side Nar Shaddaa and Correllia last night with a gunslinger and Senya at about level 27 influence set for heals. What I found was that they were tedious. They were not hard or challenging. The most notable change was that, prior to the patch, if I took a damage spike Senya could heal me back up and now she can't. If I wanted to, I could take a chance slipping between two groups because, if I aggro'd them both, I could deal with it. Now, because Senya can't heal the spike damage, I can't risk getting aggro on a second group.

 

A new player without any legacy perks or money bag character that can fund them who is then stuck with a low influence companion? Wouldn't want to be that player.

 

And now you have probably remembered the greatest rule of TOR. don't aggro more than one group at once.

A new player without legacy doesn't even need to do heroics ever do see every solo content in the game and and quickly level to 65. He can if he wan'ts, but if he finds them too hard he can always come later when he gets a better grasp the game and more gear or influence.

[Icestar]

The big promo push for KotFE was a return to story and companions were going to be made to count as the second person in order to be able to do H2+ content which is basically REQUIRED as a grind once you hit the expansion content.

 

I have done H2 heroics and still managed them without any big problems. I have not soloed the Fortress heroic yet but I do not need to since I already got the achievments. I do not mind to do them with someone else.

 

Sure they overnerfed the companions but it is not enough for me to leave the game.

 

Have fun wherever you go.

[LogunOne]

The big promo push for KotFE was a return to story and companions were going to be made to count as the second person in order to be able to do H2+ content which is basically REQUIRED as a grind once you hit the expansion content. They got us happy, brought back a lot of players and got a lot of new subs and returning subs because this was exactly what people had been begging for. People were spreading the word and and the vast majority of us were beyond thrilled to be able to take play at our own pace, at whatever time of day or night we had available, and not have that ruined for lack of grouping or by groups simply wanting to rush through the heroics as fast as possible skipping as much as they possibly could and freaking out if you dared to want to actually listen to the "talking heads" because you enjoyed it. BW got our money in their hot little hands...instant gratification.

 

Then on Tuesday the took it away with one HUGE freaking nerf from Hades to the companions that made all that fun game play available. They went back on their promise. By a lot.

 

I unsubbed today. BW has until my remaining time to address their mistake, admit they are in error and FIX the companions by a LOT or I will not renew my sub. I dislike being lied to.

 

You're right... it doesn’t make much sense to entice solo players back to the game with a primarily solo friendly expansion then take a big poo-doo on their heads by nerfing companions to this extent.

I think Bioware has to come to grips with the fact they’re not WoW, and this game was never built well for grouping. The MMO and Story elements are like oil and water …. But that’s ok …I think many players are happy having a solo experience in a mutually shared game space……Embrace that Bioware!

[mrsrachelm]

Star Fortress[Heroic 2]

 

I'm not a casual player by any stretch of the imagination, I openly admit that, I've run with some of best raiding guilds in the game, and I put out currently 7.2k DPS on a Dummy and 5.5-7.9k actual in Raid boss fights(depending on the boss). I'm running in 216-224 gear, all set bonus and optimized. I don't see how a casual player is really supposed to do this.

 

Yeah I like a challenge but this is ridiculous.

 

Thank you! Thank you for being understanding of the fact that there are a lot of players who don't or can't play to the level you have achieved whether it be for lack of time, or time of day being played, and so forth. I wish more people in your caliber of play were as understanding and respectful of their fellow gamers. KUDOS!

[SGMRock]

I agree with Khiriath and have been around the game a long time, cleared HM Ops and NM ops and have some well geared couple chars right now. The amount of HPS that the companions put out now is kinda of ridiculous compared to before and their comments on scaling better with influence levels isn't as much as they seemed to make it to be. They should have left the critical, alacrity, power and accuracy stats alone as well. I mean whats the point in lowering all the companions accuracy from 105% to 103%? Why give them all less crit and alacrity if you are already nerfing their bonus damage and bonus healing?

 

You can't even change their gear now so its not like you can put them in 224 gear to make them better. You are stuck with the hard stats they provide. So imho a healer companion at influence 50 on a level 65 char should be able to put out at least a much HPS and EHPS as a human healer in say 208 gear. Now they cant even put out what a healer could have done in 186 gear with no set bonuses at level 60. They need to tweak this somewhere in the middle of what it was and where it is now. If someone wants to level or play as a squishy healer or dps they should be able to and not be penalized for it because of these weak companions.

[branmakmuffin]

No they are not.

I tried with my shadow 224/220 gear, belsavis star fotress is not soloable, i used heroic moment ( all 8 abilities ) and all that i have, can't do it, so i abandoned the whole mission.

Companion i used was Nadia Grell, level 30 as a healer.

There are a lot more Heroics than Star Fortress. The others are just about as easy as before.

[NeuroticCupcake]

The result of this adjustment just isn't all that awful - the companions are still far stronger than they have been in the past.

Sure... if you didn't put any gear on them other than what they came with, and didn't bother to raise your Presence.

 

I'm sorry, I don't care what side of the fence you're on, but applying a 75% reduction in anything, rather than incremental decreases at a reasonable rate, is a horrible design ethic. What Bioware should have done is lowered them in increments of 10%-25% and see how each one felt. If more adjustments were needed, fine.

 

The part that really boggles me is that this really only affects solo gameplay. It has ZERO impact on PVP. It has ZERO impact on Operations. It has ZERO impact on Hard Modes. So why was such a massive "nerf" called for in the first place? Especially when once you got to 65 their effectiveness became only roughly-equal-but-slightly-less effective than another skilled player in decent gear.

 

The tuning of level syncing is where the problem lies. Companions were largely fine, if a bit overboard in the healing department.

 

Regardless, my subscription has been cancelled as well. I only returned to the game after being told the grindiness of solo play had been vastly reduced. Now that it's returning, Bioware -- and excuse my language, but it's painfully appropriate -- can go **** itself for this ridiculous methodology of game design.

Edited November 18, 2015 by NeuroticCupcake

[Lord_Iurus]

No they are not.

I tried with my shadow 224/220 gear, belsavis star fotress is not soloable, i used heroic moment ( all 8 abilities ) and all that i have, can't do it, so i abandoned the whole mission.

Companion i used was Nadia Grell, level 30 as a healer.

 

And yet, people are still getting the achievement where if you intentionally cripple yourself, you still solo the Heroic Flashpoint. How interesting.

[PedgeJameson]

Unenthralled

Unsubbed

Uninstalled

[Artaniz]

i also unsubed due top this patch.

[Phaedrynn]

I played from Early Access to just after Ilum was changed from the Open World PvP planet it was originally. I came back to try KotFE, and purchased a 2 month, non-recurring, subscription. It expires the day after tomorrow and I have been waiting to try out the changes before I decide whether or not to renew. It will not be renewed.

[ErraiSenkar]

Heroic star Fortresses are not required for Alliance grind.

You can do only the planetary heroics and not set a foot in SF, and you will gain crates and increase your companion influence by that.

 

Also, the only bit of "story" you can get with them are those 6 generic companions that you get by doing them, and if you really want those you can find that ONE player to group with you for each of them.

No it's not hard to find that one player for SF. Finding more than 3 players for anything is hard to find, finding one isn't.

After you get them you don't need to do a single one.

 

Also, REAL casual player doesn't care about some arbitrary grind to get his companion to 50 influence, or Star fortresses or Operations. He just wants to see the story and have fun. Now he can do both.

 

Eric stated the in the future (vague comment actually), unreleased companions and missions would be tied to completing Chapter 1-9 missions and recruitments. We saw this with Qyzen and Lokin. There has been no word one way or the other whether future chapters will hinge on clearing the Star Fortresses. It's too early to state that Star Fortress Heroics will be optional for opening future content.

[Apache]

The part that really boggles me is that this really only affects solo gameplay. It has ZERO impact on PVP. It has ZERO impact on Operations. It has ZERO impact on Hard Modes. So why was such a massive "nerf" called for in the first place? Especially when once you got to 65 their effectiveness became only roughly-equal-but-slightly-less effective than another skilled player in decent gear.

.

 

This also confuses me.

 

The stronger companions only helped the more solo/casual players. They didn't hurt the harder core players at all. The harder core crowd still had their Ops, and their HM 4 FP's, and their Warzones. And the solo/casual crowd had their weeklies and dailies.

 

It seemed like a good time. Everyone got what they wanted. Then BW decided that the solo/casual crowd was having too good of a time and kicked them in the teeth.....why? It makes no sense to me to nerf something that wasn't hurting anything.

 

And its going to hurt the newer players the most. They wont be like most of us more experienced players that have all of the class buffs and at least most of the datacron buffs too.

 

Don't get me wrong, Im not arguing that companions didn't need some tweaking, but holy moly... BWs uses Mjolnir for a nerf hammer.

[DirtyDiggler]

I have unsubbed and deleted the game from my pc.

[Hotrod_]

Have you actually tested the changes? Or are you just reacting to patch notes? Because it's really not as bad as people are making it out to be. The heroics are still totally soloable.

 

A 75% reduction to damage and healing is not that bad???? 40k reduction health is not that bad??? When they specifically said at level 50 influence wouldn't be that much difference??? And not even fixing the damage mitigation?? Not even fixing the legendary comp bonus either??? Are you insane??? And don't even star with that op crap because before all this pre selected comp stats you could easily get a comp to over 30% damage mitigation without even using abilities. At best it's 10% now. Yeah lets control how people's comps are and lead them to believe we're making it fun when really we're going to **** em when they least expect it.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Hotrod_

[SteveTheCynic]

But I am in 208's. But you know that getting into 220's which is the gear I'd actually need to not be quite so squishy isn't even gonna happen unless I want to grind OP's and I do not have the time or the guild for that. The crystals needed to purchase that gear only come from the Hard Mode FP's and OP's. So....as a casual...I R Screwed.

216's take a bit more H2+ (non-SF!) grind, but can be done. 220's are a bit harder, but remember what I said. I have two 220 pieces (belt and wrist-guard(1)), and I have never, ever set foot in an Op.

 

(1) Despite what many people *call* them, they are not bracers. Bracers are worn only on the left arm of a right-handed archer (or right arm of leftie), to protect the soft inner face of his forearm from the bowstring. Gary Gygax didn't know this, with the result that everyone who ever went anywhere near D&D thinks they are to protect your forearms/wrists from other people's weapons.