So, can anyone explain why the "OP" companions were a bad thing for everyone?

[teclado]

So basically you are saying that all the players ares soldiers of the same army and therefore must bne equally trained and do the same things.... Just a little flaw: this is a game, not a war.

The point I was trying to make is that if one gets accustomed to a difficulty level that is drastically different from what the level is in some group content (flashpoints, operations, pvp), then that conditioning is setting the player up for failure in the group modes. Not only will the player get frustrated, but also the group members will get frustrated. It's not just setting up the individual for failure, it's also setting up the group for failure.

 

Also, BW had to look at this from a game economy standpoint. If it gets too easy to farm areas, suddenly they will have a game economy issue as credits will be way too easy to acquire.

[Stradlin]

You have a pair of two dice. One is normal, providing numbers from 1 to 6. Other one provides 6x : : :

Which dice has more potential in playing a part in entertaining scenarios? Which dice gets kinda boring and pointless pretty fast?

 

Generally speaking, games have benefited from challenge and excitement for as long as games have been a thing.

 

If you honestly can not see why game where you always win is bit boring, then nothing anyone can say here is going to make you see the light either.

 

If you honestly can not see why and how a highly independent NPC pet which provides amount of healing superior to you, or most of your fellow players is not a bad thing in a multiplayer game, then nothing anyone can say here is going to make you see the light either.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Stradlin

[Pirindolo]

If it gets too easy to farm areas, suddenly they will have a game economy issue as credits will be way too easy to acquire.

 

Like it has been since the very beginning of the game. I have over 160 million credits now, and I am not a grinder, neither I craft and sell stuff.

[Mutiny]

Answer: because it was misleading players regarding their performance in the game, meaning that if they ever decide to attempt something challenging, they would be in for a very rude awakening. It would be like training soldiers by feeding them doughnuts and having them take naps, just prior to sending them into combat. That's setting them up for failure.

 

Meanwhile, other soldiers were in a real bootcamp, training for war. At a later point in time, these two regiments are grouped up and the one regiment is grossly unprepared for the task, and they end up getting the prepared regiment killed.

 

If all that you ever want to do is play this game solo, of course it's no problem. BW has set in motion a game that is simultaneously a single player RPG and an MMO, but not quite either of those things. That is the root of the problem. In their attempt to appeal to everyone, they are starting to appeal to no-one.

 

You know, that does sound about right.

I have only ever done a handful of FP with friends when they played and never even tried Ops. The combat to me just always felt so unresponsive and slow. So, I stuck to what I loved about this game, the story and soloing that. I was overjoyed with this new expansion and just couldn't understand the complaints. If you want a challenge then go do whatever HM stuff there is in game. But if its back to the same tiresome grind then I will leave alot sooner than I expected.

[Halinalle]

Also, BW had to look at this from a game economy standpoint. If it gets too easy to farm areas, suddenly they will have a game economy issue as credits will be way too easy to acquire.

 

Planetary heroics are still easy to do. No changes there. They don't take any longer than they used. At least for me because I mostly use companion in tank mode if I'm not the one tanking then companion is in dps mode just like pre-4.0.

[Jadescythe]

And? bad players don't have the right to play this game?

 

Another childish elitist has spoken.

 

Everyone has a right to play the game. But not everyone will be able to complete everything. SF for example, has a solo mode. So if the heroic difficulty is too much, you can complete them in a way that may be more suitable to your playstyle. If we wanted a bad player to be able to complete everything, they wouldn't have hard modes in the game at all.

[Halinalle]

Everyone has a right to play the game. But not everyone will be able to complete everything. SF for example, has a solo mode. So if the heroic difficulty is too much, you can complete them in a way that may be more suitable to your playstyle. If we wanted a bad player to be able to complete everything, they wouldn't have hard modes in the game at all.

 

Resistance leaders.

 

Either

- We do the heroic mode and recruit them

or

- We have to see that icon in top bar flashing constantly because of alerts

 

First one used to be just time consuming. Second one is just pure annoyance and it just takes up space in the list.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Halinalle

[Kajoran]

Everyone has a right to play the game. But not everyone will be able to complete everything. SF for example, has a solo mode. So if the heroic difficulty is too much, you can complete them in a way that may be more suitable to your playstyle. If we wanted a bad player to be able to complete everything, they wouldn't have hard modes in the game at all.

 

Except solo mode will NOT complete the alliance missions required to unlock companions. I think it would at least help a lot if after the first run of solo mode you would get you to a solo difficulty boss that would complete the quest.

 

And I hardly think that unlocking companions which are used in solo play should be locked under heroic group required (at least for some) content.

[EightSided]

 

(blah blah blah)

 

Hopefully BioWare don't want to become a complete laughing stock, by having a game that's even easier than WoW. Hopefully they have the integrity to keep it as it is, and not nerf the game utterly down to the floor to appease the very, very worst players.

 

(blah blah blah)

 

 

On the flip side of that, they'll stop catering to the elitist vocal minority and actually listen to the majority who play the game. Look at the forums. There is no even split between people liking the nerf and those not liking it. People overwhelmingly hate the patch. For every 'I'm uber and you can't play' post there are 20 saying 'Your patch sucks, fix it'. All those subs they brought back are gone again because people fell like they were lied to. Some to never return.

 

Biofail has finally put out a patch that's drawing more players to the forums to voice their opinions and the elitist vocal minority are being silenced.

 

We don't want to play the game the way you think it should be played. We want to play it our way. You want a challenge, dumb your companion down. I liked mine the way they were. You want to sit with your nose 3 inches from the screen mashing skill buttons timed to the split second to beat that boss then so be it. If that's your thing go for it. Its not mine. To me that's mind bendingly boring.

 

I don't tell you how to spend your money, don't tell me how to spend mine. Maybe instead of telling people how to play your game, you should study your companion so you can make it more challenging for yourself.

 

They should have left it alone and started a two stage game. Levels 1 to 65 learning in preparation for endgame. Instead they just screwed up all the goodwill they had gotten back when Knights dropped. Most players were happy. Now they're back to unsubbing.

 

Awesome business model.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Except solo mode will NOT complete the alliance missions required to unlock companions. I think it would at least help a lot if after the first run of solo mode you would get you to a solo difficulty boss that would complete the quest.

 

And I hardly think that unlocking companions which are used in solo play should be locked under heroic group required (at least for some) content.

 

Now that's a complaint I agree with. They keep saying they want the main story accessible to solo players. I'm fine with that, I'm 95% solo. I was shocked to find the solo SF did not count toward taking out the SF and building up my alliance, which I thought was an integral part of the main story. The only reason I didn't gripe was because the heroic SF was soloable for me. I have yet to actually see if I can solo them on my main now, let alone my much less geared alts.

[Pavijan]

Resistance leaders.

 

Either

- We do the heroic mode and recruit them

or

- We have to see that icon in top bar flashing constantly because of alerts

 

First one used to be just time consuming. Second one is just pure annoyance and it just takes up space in the list.

 

Third - if you want hat resistance leader, you find ONE person who also want to do it (LFG Star Fortress on Odessen) which was very quick before and will be even easier now and that you do it together for a quick 15 minutes and you have your leader!!! Problem solved.

[AshenK]

You wanna know why?

 

Going out into the world in an MMO should be full of danger! In UO a monster or player could kill you in seconds. So you had to go out with friends, guildmates or people you met. Same with SWG it was about working together in order to do things in the game. It was about being social and talking to others so you could find people to do that with. The companion pretend friends hurt that idea as everyone was running around soloing stuff that should have another player with them.

 

More so what about open world pvp? The companions would have turned that into a mess and then some. Chances are it wouldn't have been long before the casuals started asking if they could take companions into war zones.

 

Maybe you guys don't get it but this is a great first step, companions had been way too over powered and for way too long I'll add in. Now they just need to do some nerfs to the op classes like Sniper/Gunslinger. Buff up ones that need it like Ops. Ditch the whole "story" content and get some new raids and pvp maps in and soon.

[BloodyHarry]

You wanna know why?

 

Going out into the world in an MMO should be full of danger! In UO a monster or player could kill you in seconds. So you had to go out with friends, guildmates or people you met. Same with SWG it was about working together in order to do things in the game. It was about being social and talking to others so you could find people to do that with. The companion pretend friends hurt that idea as everyone was running around soloing stuff that should have another player with them.

 

More so what about open world pvp? The companions would have turned that into a mess and then some. Chances are it wouldn't have been long before the casuals started asking if they could take companions into war zones.

 

Maybe you guys don't get it but this is a great first step, companions had been way too over powered and for way too long I'll add in. Now they just need to do some nerfs to the op classes like Sniper/Gunslinger. Buff up ones that need it like Ops. Ditch the whole "story" content and get some new raids and pvp maps in and soon.

 

This is not UO and not SWG and it isaway from these games as much as it is possible. It will never be close to these games and Bioware never wanted to. TOR focuses on completely other aspects and that is fine. It is all about the story and to feel "epic". The companions were a good step in the right directions (although they were too strong...) but this patch was way to extreme.

 

Nevertheless.. back to your post. UO =/= SWTOR. What made the one game good can do the other ill. As it has happened here.

[AshenK]

This is not UO and not SWG and it isaway from these games as much as it is possible. It will never be close to these games and Bioware never wanted to. TOR focuses on completely other aspects and that is fine. It is all about the story and to feel "epic". The companions were a good step in the right directions (although they were too strong...) but this patch was way to extreme.

 

Nevertheless.. back to your post. UO =/= SWTOR. What made the one game good can do the other ill. As it has happened here.

You know what? I've been hearing that again and again for years and I'm sick of hearing it. Know what made those games good? You had to be social with other players to do things, and those things are not some simple faceroll but hard and meaningful. This whole lets make everything for casuals is what's killing games now. I couldn't even play Fallout 4 for longer then 10 minutes after seeing how easy they made that.

 

BioWare did a good thing for once. If you want to do things TALK to other people. If you really can't do that? Go play some single player game.

[Halinalle]

Going out into the world in an MMO should be full of danger! In UO a monster or player could kill you in seconds. So you had to go out with friends, guildmates or people you met.

 

Nothing compared to EVE's lowsec.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Halinalle

[DamenX]

You people r so confused its ridiculous. They didn't nerf the companions because of anyones desires or wishes for a harder/easier game. They did it because they were obviously broken/op and it wasn't what they wanted the game to be.

[Darkwords]

Since they waited to drop the F-companion bomb till mid month and most subs have been paid for this month, I'll have to call my bank to stop payment if I unsub and tell them I was frauded so I quit playing. They will take care of it . Edited November 18, 2015 by Darkwords

[Pavijan]

And now to answer original poster on his question:

 

The problem with all the "Star Fortress grinders" is that they forget that when overturning the companions way to much and therefore made soloing Heroic Fortresses (which ARE designed as group content) possible that also completely DESTROYED the leveling process.

 

The game leading to lvl 65 became playing with god-mode constantly on, and made playing the game pointless,when all you had to to do to win every fight in game is to guide your companion there and he will kill everything on his own, which made your involvement unnecessary and interactivity gone.

 

And NO, I don't want to send away my companion before every fight or to put him in passive mode! Fighting along your companions was the important feature of this game since it's beginning and it worked fine until 4.0.

I don't want to lose that, for that very important element of game-play, just that someone could have a few minutes shorter session of completely optional grind.

 

And by correcting of companion strength none lost anything. People who don't like grouping still cant complete all story related solo content easy as before, with all the speed and comfort people who like grouping will continue to do for content that requires it, nothing of value is lost for all the people in general.

 

Now do you understand?

Edited November 18, 2015 by Pavijan

[Slymmy]

Everyone has a right to play the game. But not everyone will be able to complete everything. SF for example, has a solo mode. So if the heroic difficulty is too much, you can complete them in a way that may be more suitable to your playstyle. If we wanted a bad player to be able to complete everything, they wouldn't have hard modes in the game at all.

Hey Jade who is we

[Jadescythe]

Since they waited to drop the F-companion bomb till mid month and most subs have been paid for this month, I'll have to call my bank to stop payment if I unsub and tell them I was frauded so I quit playing. They will take care of it .

 

Timing is irrelevant. Theoretically, anyone who has been subbed since launch would have a sub date recurring around the 20th since that's when the game launched. But I'm sure 4 years in, sub dates are all over the place. Mine will be coming up for renewal in the next few days myself.

 

As a side note, you will have to make your own decision, but I would caution that players have been perma banned for stopping payment on subs. An option if you will never play the game again, but not a good choice if you think you may return or want to go free to play. Some areas in EU may have different rules around this if your sub just recently renewed.

[Jadescythe]

Hey Jade who is we

 

We, the people. Feel free to browse my posting history if you feel I'm a BW employee, lol

[Glower]

So, can anyone explain why the "OP" companions were a bad thing for everyone?

For everyone? I don't think so. More like for a bunch of vocal and selfish players who cannot use companion dismiss feature or companion in dps role!

 

In story driven expansion with pure solo mode between cutscenes. Yeah let's nerf companions! What a great plan.

[Pavijan]

For everyone? I don't think so. More like for a bunch of vocal and selfish players who cannot use companion dismiss feature or companion in dps role!

 

In story driven expansion with pure solo mode between cutscenes. Yeah let's nerf companions! What a great plan.

 

And how is that nerfing made playing of pure solo story missions between cutscenes hard or impossible?

[teclado]

Nothing compared to EVE's lowsec.

Or even high sec, especially while carrying expensive cargo. Sometimes, not even shiny cargo is required. I lost a few transport ships just undocking from 4-4 with no cargo whatsoever.

Edited November 18, 2015 by teclado

[bdatt]

I could personally care less but when folks are getting kicked from flashpoints in favor of a companion something is majorly wrong. Edited November 18, 2015 by bdatt