What people SHOULD be telling BW

[Gallandaeus]

Play the game ... pretty sure in reading about the SF on dulfy it says the solo mode is repeatable also to get inf etc. up?

 

Else there are the heroics that can still be done etc. etc.

 

Also check this out:

 

 

 

That's from the original alliance blog. This more or less proves companions were overpowered by design to begin with and they are now working as intended because the HM SF is now working as intended.

 

People just lost their gravy train and have their knickers in a twist, get over it.

 

500 influence a run. 500. Why would you rot your brain for a meager influence bonus for companions that doesn't even do much anymore until you get them nearly maxed out on influence? I don't suppose you've been looking at the influence cost per level and how insignificant 500 is.

[SmilingFace]

On the expansion page they promised 'Play one of eight class stories enhanced to offer a deeper, more accessible experience purely focused on immersing you in a personal Star Wars story.' So far I really cant see any change except for giving us powerful companions to make the leveling process much less tedious but now they removed that as well. So where are the changes? Playing a <30 level character for over 30 hours isn't all that fun cosidering there is no reliable rotations to speak of. Edited November 19, 2015 by SmilingFace

[denavin]

Ok you want examples here goes;

 

Characters are all geared that same:

 

Level 65 wearing mostly 208 gear with chest and legs 216 weapons 216. (non agumented)

Used Lana level 18. Tried all roles Tank, DPS, and Heals.

Here is what happend...

 

Tried the Sentinal

Went to Makeb:

One on one, no problem with any mob. Swarmed by 4 or more dead in 15 to 30 seconds reguardless of what stance I used. If Lana is in Tank mode she died in 20 seconds me 10 seconds later. If Lana is in DPS mode she died in 10 seconds me 10 seconds later. If Lana is Heal mode I died in 10 seconds (cause she is swarmed and does not heal me and can't hear herself either) Lana died in 5 seconds later.

So I deleted the Makeb missions and went to Voss

 

On Voss:

Walked into the camp and tried a pack of 6 Mowrowars.

Again no matter what stance I am in or what stance Lana is in dead in seconds.

 

If I try Gold mobs same result One on one no problem, more than one dead.

If I try Silver mobs dead in seconds. (no chance at all cause they ignore me and kill Lana then pound me into the ground)

If I try gropus of 4 or more Non Gold or Silver Dead in seconds. (same reason as above they ingore me and kill Lana then destroy me)

 

If the mobs don't kill me first they will gang up on Lana and kill her. I follow shortly there after.

I try Herioc Ability no differance, I have only one shield skill "Protected by the Force" it lasts 6 seconds with a 3 min cool down, not much help.

I try ballanced Light Saber (don't remember the name of the skill) same results.

I use Lana cause she is the highes companion I have. All the rest are 14 or lower.

 

Ok I try my Jugernaut I do much better on the tank I can kill most of the Heroic 2 content with a considerable amout of difficulty.

 

If I try my DPS sage I can kill most of the Herioc 2 content but only because I have a shield and can do light heals on myself and Lana, cause I can not rely on Lana to heal me, much less keep herself up. (not how it should be)

 

The choice to scale (don't like the word NERF) the companions down to 25% effectivness (75% reduction in abilities) was a huge misstake.

I aggree they where way too strong but now they are weaker than prior to the realease of KOTOR.

The companions ability needs to be increased so they are our equals (after all we did train them)and so that we can do what Eric said we could.

 

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

 

I play these games to have fun. Not to increase my stress level.

 

Currently all they are doing is increasing my stress level and no longer fun.

 

Will be trying to take a DPS class my level 60 Shadow with mimium level companions (most less than 10) through the KOTOR starter story. Have not tryed that yet and see how it goes.

[Ghisallo]

What I "feel" is this isn't what I subbed for, hence my cancellation.

 

I let my wallet do it's talking. There's so many games with better mechanics than this one in this industry, there's little reason for me to stay subbed, now that what I was finding fun is gone.

 

And that is fine to. Call me silly but this is how I think. I don't like it and don't want to try and help fix it I leave, period, end of story. I let my exit survey speak for me. If I don't like it but want to fix it I provide constructive information. Raging, accusations etc accomplishes little if anything.

[ZanyaCross]

Ok you want examples here goes;

 

-snip-.

 

You also have an ability that blinds any enemy short of an op boss, reducing their accuracy by 99% for several seconds. You also have one that can boost you and your team's defense by 10% for ten seconds on a 30sec cool. Rebuke can also give you a massive damage reduction.

 

Also, always burn the weakest mobs first and fast. Your comp will last longer the less things are shooting her.

Edited November 19, 2015 by ZanyaCross

[Ghisallo]

You and the next guy ... where is the advertising for this?

 

Having it overpowered and then fixing it isn't bait and switch, it's fixing it. Companions are still better than pre 4.0 - Get your influence up.

 

I think the issue is some people aren't looking at the big picture. They were used to their geared companions and now that they have to, in essence, regear them they think they are simply "worse" period. They perhaps don't understand why this was done.

 

The changes to Companions are about trying to get new players or returning players gone for a while invested. Companions are an important part of the game. The biggest hurdle in a professional based MMO is "catching up" to the existing player base. New players coming in with undergeared companions, ESPECIALLY if they use the "free level 60" token, would feel far behind. As such our companions take a hit and have a new path of progression, affection and not gear.

 

When you look at it this way, that the intent was to make every start over (to an extent) it becomes a little more clear.

[sjscorpiomark]

And as I've said in other threads, I could live with that, but only if the slider also affected your loot. You want fights twice as easy? You get half the credits and green gear. You want the big rewards? You earn them.

 

I have no problem with the slider effecting the rewards but not sure 50% is reasonable as even the OP nerfs would make the fights twice as easy IMHO maybe 25% or 30% but whatever the specifics a slider fixes the issue as far as I am concerened.

 

Let the player choose their level of challange vs fun factor. To some people extremely difficult =fun and easy = boring while others look at it as easy = fun/relaxing challenge=boring/annoying. As long as the slider does not effect true end game content (which it wouldn't because 4 skilled humans will always beat 2 humans and 2 AI) at least on mechanics, AOE, Bad stuff on ground etc.... or PvP. I say put a dang slider in, have it effect the rep/credits and see how that goes. not that BW is reading these or even cares what we think.

[denavin]

You also have an ability that blinds any enemy short of an op boss, reducing their accuracy by 99% for several seconds. You also have one that can boost you and your team's defense by 10% for ten seconds on a 30sec cool. Rebuke can also give you a massive damage reduction.

 

Also, always burn the weakest mobs first and fast. Your comp will last longer the less things are shooting her.

 

True but a few more seconds of life does not help me complete the task at hand. It only delays the time before i die.

[RAVM]

My experience with my DPS Sage at 65.

 

Last week with Nadia at rank 20 and tank stance, did a Voss Heroic (don't remember name) where you go to a base, kill everyone, destroy some equipment and destroy some med tanks (gold mob pops out when you do). Back then, no matter how many mobs I pulled, Nadia was practically invincible, no meaningful amounts of health lost, no stopping for her to heal between fights necessary.

 

Yesterday, with the change and Nadia now at rank 30, same Heroic. The toughest groups of mobs would bring her down to about 60% health before they all died. After every two or three groups I'd stop to get her healed up.

 

So a fairly big change for tanking, but reasonable and I'm not complaining.

 

I don't know about comp healer roles, I barely tried them before and haven't tried at all since.

Edited November 19, 2015 by RAVM

[ZanyaCross]

My experience with my DPS Sage.

 

Last week with Nadia at rank 20 and tank stance, did a Voss Heroic (don't remember name) where you go to a base, kill everyone, destroy some equipment and destroy some med tanks (gold mob pops out when you do). Back then, no matter how many mobs I pulled, Nadia was practically invincible, no meaningful amounts of health lost, no stopping for her to heal between fights necessary.

 

Yesterday, with the change and Nadia now at rank 30, same Heroic. The toughest groups of mobs would bring her down to about 60% health before they all died. After every two or three groups I'd stop to get her healed up.

 

So a fairly big change for tanking, but reasonable and I'm not complaining.

 

I don't know about comp healer roles, I barely tried them before and haven't tried at all since.

 

My experience as well with my sorc and Xalek. Running heroics on Makeb forced me to be careful and use a lot more of my non-damage abilities, but they were still very much doable.

[Taf-Kuf]

If I had a nickel for every 'Who is leaving/Cancelling' poll I've seen I could sub forever!

[Ghisallo]

the same issue exists in every MMO some class as a tagging advantage over another class thus they have an easier time getting those particular mobs. Hunters in WoW for an example could simply spam a trap on the spawn point of a quest mob and it would tag the mob after being created 'in the world' but before being visible to any player.

 

People that wanted the nerf wanted more of a challenge right, where there is one challenge get to those mobs as fast as others but not use your slider. see the slider idea is an OPTION you can choose to turn it up or down whenever you want. people racing ahead either suck it up or use the option your choice.

 

the problem with the nerf as it was implemented is that it disproportionately effects low and mid level players who don't have tons of datacrons, legacvy buffs, or comps with 40 or 50 influence (yet) because as far as I know nobody regardless of RNG luck, pcan make enough credits by say level 20 to gift up a comp to 50, 15 maybe but not much higher including story convos. so not only do their classes have fewer abilities/cooldowns to play with they also have the weakest possible comps. if they nerfed just level 65 comps I think much of the complaining would have not happened. end game challenge sure but why the hell make leveling to cap take any longer than needed? besides what does it effect in your game if I run h2s with OP comps ??? is it because less 'experienced' players using op comps do it faster than you? but you wanted a challenge dont use the op comp and beat their times sheesh.

 

gonna go bury my head in the sand like BW and it's cronies.

 

Your first response is a non sequitur because there is a difference between say a ranged class having an advantage on tagging (as an example) and having an optional switch that allows people to overall steam roll content, thus completing it faster than intended overall. As for the rest (such as disproportionate effect) that is why BW needs actual data and not simply "this is impossible".

[Ghisallo]

Ok you want examples here goes;

 

Characters are all geared that same:

 

Level 65 wearing mostly 208 gear with chest and legs 216 weapons 216. (non agumented)

Used Lana level 18. Tried all roles Tank, DPS, and Heals.

Here is what happend...

 

Tried the Sentinal

Went to Makeb:

One on one, no problem with any mob. Swarmed by 4 or more dead in 15 to 30 seconds reguardless of what stance I used. If Lana is in Tank mode she died in 20 seconds me 10 seconds later. If Lana is in DPS mode she died in 10 seconds me 10 seconds later. If Lana is Heal mode I died in 10 seconds (cause she is swarmed and does not heal me and can't hear herself either) Lana died in 5 seconds later.

So I deleted the Makeb missions and went to Voss

 

On Voss:

Walked into the camp and tried a pack of 6 Mowrowars.

Again no matter what stance I am in or what stance Lana is in dead in seconds.

 

If I try Gold mobs same result One on one no problem, more than one dead.

If I try Silver mobs dead in seconds. (no chance at all cause they ignore me and kill Lana then pound me into the ground)

If I try gropus of 4 or more Non Gold or Silver Dead in seconds. (same reason as above they ingore me and kill Lana then destroy me)

 

If the mobs don't kill me first they will gang up on Lana and kill her. I follow shortly there after.

I try Herioc Ability no differance, I have only one shield skill "Protected by the Force" it lasts 6 seconds with a 3 min cool down, not much help.

I try ballanced Light Saber (don't remember the name of the skill) same results.

I use Lana cause she is the highes companion I have. All the rest are 14 or lower.

 

Ok I try my Jugernaut I do much better on the tank I can kill most of the Heroic 2 content with a considerable amout of difficulty.

 

If I try my DPS sage I can kill most of the Herioc 2 content but only because I have a shield and can do light heals on myself and Lana, cause I can not rely on Lana to heal me, much less keep herself up. (not how it should be)

 

The choice to scale (don't like the word NERF) the companions down to 25% effectivness (75% reduction in abilities) was a huge misstake.

I aggree they where way too strong but now they are weaker than prior to the realease of KOTOR.

The companions ability needs to be increased so they are our equals (after all we did train them)and so that we can do what Eric said we could.

 

 

 

I play these games to have fun. Not to increase my stress level.

 

Currently all they are doing is increasing my stress level and no longer fun.

 

Will be trying to take a DPS class my level 60 Shadow with mimium level companions (most less than 10) through the KOTOR starter story. Have not tryed that yet and see how it goes.

 

Stats, including presence, are more important than gear numbers as people could be running dps BUT wearing tank gear so they don't burn fast enough (I have seen it). Presence is important because that also increases the Companion strength.

[Laoi]

People are upset clearly but...

 

Clearly people are having different experiences. Some are saying "yes more challenging but can do everything I did on Monday" with healer Comps and others are saying "Useless". Useless/impossible/broken etc are not helpful under these circumstances because clearly that is not universal.

 

What would be helpful is

 

1. If you are having issues list Character level, stats, average gear level, class and spec.

2. if at lvl 65 where were you when you had the problem?

3. what role companion was in

The reason for the above is that the change to healing companions was NOT just a flat 50% or something. Presense and level sync have effects as well. So if you do fine, except on Makeb, the Makeb lvl sync mechanic may be the issue and not the nerf overall. If you presence is low perhaps they weighted presence to much into the equation?

 

If you were doing a heroic star fortress you may actually have less gear than they intended? Maybe the encounters need to be tweeked because they are more unforgiving against a particular class? As much as people don't want to hear it there will always be an optimal class/companion role team, maybe the role combination was the problem.

 

Just saying "this is impossible" and calling people who disagree elitists doesn't help them identify a problem. Simply demanding that it is completely reverted is not going happen either. If you have issues give details. Not only is it far more constructive for the devs, but a lot of the back and forth on these threads (that regrettably I even got trapped in) devolved into "I know you are but what am I arguments" which are not only counter productive for the Devs purposes but destructive to our community.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

theres not much point telling these devs anything constructive. the mere fact that out of all issues this game has they decided to have a closer look at companions says everything. these ppl will never comprehend the real problems this game has and always had since day 1. its simply a lost cause. fortunately Camelot Unchained isnt too far off anymore.

[Reno_Tarshil]

I fully agree with this thread, Ghisallo and what I have been doing for most of the day was running heroics to see how things were, and posting the feedback in my own thread.

[EightSided]

You have to remember, the elitist vocal minority have been around for a long, long time dropping thousands of dollars to earn their snobby attitudes., grinding hours and hours of content so they can say 'It's easy, you suck' while wearing all of their Legacy, CC and market gear.

 

Then. Bioware drops Knights and players have a chance to catch up to them in a fraction of the time! Holy hell, no way! So off they scramble like a bad Game of Thrones knock off shooting down anything that may disrupt the status quo. No one will stop them from looking down their noses at lesser players and saying 'Learn your class' and 'You suck, just uninstall'.

 

Unfortunately for them, this patch has brought the casual players into the forums, drowning out their arrogance and letting Bioware know how unpopular this farce of a patch is!

 

So suck it up and live with it. Casuals have taken over...

[ZeroTypeR]

The current comp setup hasn't affected me much. I can still solo about 90% of the content and the 10% I can't solo is stuff I don't normally do much anyway unless I happen to be grouping:

HMFP

TMFP

OPS

H2+ SF/FP (recently added to my list)

 

My lv is 65 and average gear lv is 208/216

Edited November 19, 2015 by ZeroTypeR

[Aegian]

Well the title of the post says what we should be telling Bioware.

 

Do WE REALLY need to tell them that if our characters increased their HP from level 60 to 65 by 38% in 216/220 gear, that if companions effective stats only increased 12% from 60 to 65 that there is going to be a problem?

 

if so um yeah.....

[Ghisallo]

You have to remember, the elitist vocal minority have been around for a long, long time dropping thousands of dollars to earn their snobby attitudes., grinding hours and hours of content so they can say 'It's easy, you suck' while wearing all of their Legacy, CC and market gear.

 

Then. Bioware drops Knights and players have a chance to catch up to them in a fraction of the time! Holy hell, no way! So off they scramble like a bad Game of Thrones knock off shooting down anything that may disrupt the status quo. No one will stop them from looking down their noses at lesser players and saying 'Learn your class' and 'You suck, just uninstall'.

 

Unfortunately for them, this patch has brought the casual players into the forums, drowning out their arrogance and letting Bioware know how unpopular this farce of a patch is!

 

So suck it up and live with it. Casuals have taken over...

 

Okay, so if this is about elitists Eric lied. So why even debate or argue? If I feel a company I patronize lies or baits and switches I leave. There is a rule that says...

 

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

 

In this case I would replace "stupidity" with "sloppy coding/testing." BW clearly rushed this launch. Something as simple as being able to reset utilities after a field respec was broken. The level 60 token didn't work right and people needed to get mailed back gear they were not properly refunded, heck before the nerf tanks companions had effectively ZERO% in some stats.

 

I understand that there are players who have always felt this should not be an MMORPG. They came here wanting BW:TOR 3 and found a game with a grind, gear based progression, scripted dungeons and raids. They saw how BW sold this expac and hoped "maybe it will finally be my game.". The state of companions likely made these players say " YES!!!! It is MY game now.". Now the nerf to companions has returned it to the prior game of grind and gear progression they found tedious and frustrating.

 

This must SUCK, but to blame it on anything other than a mistake on the part of BW is simply not supported by a single fact. It is actual disproved by most facts. Eric's statements, the other bugs and mistakes that are part of this launch etc all indicate that the state of companions was simply part of that.

 

If you want things to change blaming a myth will not see change. BW has specific metrics on the time they expect the average player to complete a grind like any other MMORPG. Blaming a myth rather than producing data that can be applied to that metric is ignored. Contrary to popular belief devs do not nerf or buff things based on complaints. They use the complaints to direct them to where there MAY be a problem. They then look at their metrics...

 

1. What average gear level, stats, presence, companion affection etc, was this encounter designed for?

2. How fast with those average stats should it be completed?

 

Etc. Then THEY decide if there is actually a problem. If there is they nerf or buff. After nerf or buff they ask for feedback to see if additional changes are needed. No constructive feed back men's the change you hate remains in its current state. Constructive feedback and not looking for a "boogieman" to blame, means that maybe they do make tweaks in your favor.

[Ghisallo]

Well the title of the post says what we should be telling Bioware.

 

Do WE REALLY need to tell them that if our characters increased their HP from level 60 to 65 by 38% in 216/220 gear, that if companions effective stats only increased 12% from 60 to 65 that there is going to be a problem?

 

if so um yeah.....

 

You forget something. The Companions were basically reset, in large part to allow new players getting free level 60s could jump right in with the rest of us. As part of this reset they removed all companion gear and replaced a companion gear grind with a Companion affection grind. So part of this expac is about finding, and returning, our companions to their "former glory."

 

It's comments like this that make me think there is a disconnect between what BW launched and what people expected/wanted. BW wanted us, for whatever reason, to essentially regrind our companions as we progress through the content. They also have content we have done 100 times and is 30 levels behind us suddenly "current" content with level sync. So we have players that think "we should be steamrolling this...my companion and I are level 65 and we are on Nar Shaddah for goodness sakes!!!!" The problem is the mechanics of this expac are specifically designed to make Nar Shaddah not a steamroll, but part of the grind.

 

So its not the companions that are the issue, they are just a symptom, its the core paradigm of the entire expansion that is the cause.

[Xhelis]

You have to remember, the elitist vocal minority have been around for a long, long time dropping thousands of dollars to earn their snobby attitudes., grinding hours and hours of content so they can say 'It's easy, you suck' while wearing all of their Legacy, CC and market gear.

 

Then. Bioware drops Knights and players have a chance to catch up to them in a fraction of the time! Holy hell, no way! So off they scramble like a bad Game of Thrones knock off shooting down anything that may disrupt the status quo. No one will stop them from looking down their noses at lesser players and saying 'Learn your class' and 'You suck, just uninstall'.

 

Unfortunately for them, this patch has brought the casual players into the forums, drowning out their arrogance and letting Bioware know how unpopular this farce of a patch is!

 

So suck it up and live with it. Casuals have taken over...

 

 

I find it particularly cute how the biggest snobs and elitists have come together in one post to belittle and degrade everyone else in the game. It truly warms the cockles of my heart. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I was specifically talking about low level toons, not 65's how is a level 20 toon going to have 50 influence? it cannot be done unless someone gives them millions of credits right? so a level 20 wanting to do Drumond Kass h2s is supposed to run SF heroics for influence? /boggle/

 

You get influence by playing the game ... if you can't do the heroics then they are too much for you as they were when us older players came through. Gear up better, join a group or come back later when you can ( and level sync keeps it relevant ).

 

You have plenty of solo content to have fun in the game levelling whilst you build influence, you don't NEED to do heroics to enjoy yourself. Ideally you've still got another 7 class stories to enjoy if you still find things tough @ 65, there is no shortage of value for money.

 

Heck you could even learn to work in group content, it's great fun when people manage to stop being purposely belligerent over it

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Challenging. I really don't think people understand this concept at all. I think people need to realize that the "challenge" they've been asking for in SOLO content is just tedious grinding made even more tedious by the lack of speed that pre-patch companions gave. And considering some people have multiple characters to do this grindy alliance building on? No. Challenge should never be imposed on repeatable solo content unless we get a Hard Mode option that offers increased reward at a greater difficulty to the player. Did we get that? Nope. What we got is BioWare's classic use of the easy-way-out solution.

 

Yes you did get that, HM SF - they said it can be done solo if you meet the criteria and have the skill to do so.

 

If people are finding the way this game is tedious now ... *** were you thinking for the previous few years of "tedium"?

 

If you want truly entertaining mechanics and gameplay in this game you need to give operations and flashpoints a nudge, they don't bite ... much. Bolster now means you don't even need gear! Woo lol.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

500 influence a run. 500. Why would you rot your brain for a meager influence bonus for companions that doesn't even do much anymore until you get them nearly maxed out on influence? I don't suppose you've been looking at the influence cost per level and how insignificant 500 is.

 

*shrug* I worked my way in various ways of the game to be able to buy my influence to 50.

With the amounts dailies pay out now etc. it's not that much of a stretch to get there.

 

Anyway HM SF is the pinnacle now of solo content, every old casual player shouldn't be able to achieve completing this solo on the first few weeks of gameplay. If they then good for them but it certainly shouldn't be expected.

 

You have goals, go achieve them or **** and go do something else.

[MaximusRex]

we are talking about a change that more or less is a bait and switch of the advertised product!

 

Responses like this are why this nerf won't ever get changed.

 

It's kind of sad, but the over the top outrage leading to posts of unrealistic performance problems, like "2 mobs on you will kill you" is basically telling BioWare that forum feedback is so worthless they might as well ignore it altogether.