Companion Feedback

[Isnogut]

On that part I am 100% behind you.

 

I dont have a character at level cap and having that GLARING bug left in the game for people who are there, is stupid.

 

Its so stupid because a tank companion is so necessary for certain classes and I agree it makes them basically unplayable.

And this is one of the main questions of mine for BioWare. Why haven't they fixed the more important bugs, before even thinking at nerfing the healing abillities of our companions? The game has since 4.0 a lot of bugs that need bigger attention, but they "fixed" the most minor of all by now.

 

We cant efficiently use the tank abillity for companions, we have major lags on any playable new content, even if our ping and FPS is at optimum (Odessen and Star Force are a lag nightmare, not only for me). We have outrageous glitches in the Star Fortress, dissapearing items and learned recipies, etc. What's with those? At the moment only the motivation for the good storyplot and nice features hold the community back from a major meltdown, ...but they're fixing something insignificant.

 

Its like going with my car for a motor overhaul and the mechanic is not concentrating his efforts on this, but he is putting new tires on the car, because "Winter is coming". I give a darn about this at the moment, I just want my motor fixed!

[Cubicus]

My question is:

What is a companion? A) A pet v2.0, a minor support who tags along and sends me now and than a heal, but only contributes minor to my progress?

Or B) a significant part of the players progression and be able to fill one role for some parts of the game to open up content for solo players.

 

With all the effort that SWTOR has put into companion progression (gifts, story lines, conversations, previously armor customization ), for me so far it was B). But with the latest patch, I'm not really sure about that anymore. As it is right now (after >25 H2 runs post patch) I saw the following changes:

Groups of linked mobs (at lvl 50+ usually 5 mobs with 1-3 elites and 2-4 strong mobs) are more difficult than champion lvl bosses in H2s, simply because you have to keep the mobs off your companion and he usually can't heal through all the damage. Therefore, my rotation as dps is more defensive than it is dps heavy, and with most def. CDs having cooldowns between 1-3 mins, it has significantly slowed down my runs. The dCDs are only meant as "oh shi." buttons when you accidentally pull too many mobs, got aggro, got hit by an extreme crit, or want to help your healer to catch up with healing/give him a break, not as a regular part of your rotation (oh shi., oh shi., oh shi., oh shi.,....). otherwise their cd time would be much lower.

 

The problem companion had before was not that they were overpowered in one spec (heal, dps OR tank) and intended to be fixed with the latest patch. They were OP in ALL 3 parts and 'carried' a player through the game. Another problem was also that they were heavily used as player replacement in tactical FPs and OPS (and that shouldn't be). If you want to keep companions as an useful part of the game keep them at a level of an average player in the chosen role and reduce effectiveness in the other two roles (eg heal at normal level but dps/threat generation/def. abilities at lower level compared to players). If you want to award players for ranking the companion, start the normal level at 80% and increase gradually with each rank as before. But keep their abilities close to a player in the chosen role.

 

And lastly, to respond to the players that certainly will argue with "this is an MMO, than group up with another player"! Please realize how your argument is contradicting itself: I need to group up with another player to be able to do H2 that mostly yield me companion gifts so that I can replace a player later???? That makes not really sense to me and makes a companion obsolete, not to mention all the gifts that drop/are in the alliance chests/can be bought with data crystals(after geared) for turn ins that uselessly fill my inventory.