Darth_Victus Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Great post, and very well written. Hope BioWare takes notice and at least reads the post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanniSilvante Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 I agree with the OP 100%. I'm not a hardcore player. I play for story mostly. I was fine with the comp power pre-4.0 tbh. Granted I only used healing comps when I would rather have used others...but that's neither here nor there. With the fact that we need to use those damn boxes to raise our alliance leaders for STORY purposes...the planet heroics are a grind. With the comps as powerful as they were on heals, it wasn't so much of a chore. Were the comps OP? Sure. Did it matter? No. Can't use comps in PVP warzones (open world pvp is meaningless, always has been.) can't use them in OPs. So from what I can tell they were nerfed cause Bioware hates fun? Or cause of people complaining they were OP when it didn't effect them. Either way it was silly. I cancelled my sub as I already have a job. Don't need a second one. Hopefully the devs see the OP's post and all these people that agree and either revert or bring comps back up to at the very least pre 4.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDiablos Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 It was probably posted after your thread but Eric has already stated that Heroic 2 Star Forge was meant to be completed by players that 1. Understand and can play their class at a high level 2. Raised the influence of their companion to a high level 3. Unlocked the alliance bonuses (which are VERY POWERFUL, particularly Sana-Rae's and the Admiral's) At the moment I think this criteria is being met. You've done it. I did Heroic 2 Nar Shaddaa just for kicks, since I've already gotten all the achievements. I completed it without dying, though my influence level 40 Lana died twice. Others have also completed it. It's much easier for a tank class at the moment certainly, but other than a slight advantage of certain classes I would say it was working as intended. Everything else is still very doable. Heroic 2's are still easily accomplished by any skill level with the use of some CC's and defensive cooldowns (those things used to be necessary for story content if you remember). And story content is still an interactive movie. I think a lot of people on these forums are breaking out some world class faux outrage because all those things take longer, not because they're not doable. There is at least one problem though that others have mentioned, and that's the fact there's so many alliance companions locked behind the heroic star forges. Not sure there's any story locked behind it though, all I got for completing all 6 was a letter from Theron saying "Hey, you did it buddy" or some such. Wasn't really a big Luke and Han getting medals on Yavin type of moment or anything. I guess the fix for this would be if they maybe just gated the companions behind the solo version of the dungeon. That seems a fair fix, as those are really easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GavinBail Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 OP is correct on all counts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkbloom Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 There is at least one problem though that others have mentioned, and that's the fact there's so many alliance companions locked behind the heroic star forges. Not sure there's any story locked behind it though, all I got for completing all 6 was a letter from Theron saying "Hey, you did it buddy" or some such. Wasn't really a big Luke and Han getting medals on Yavin type of moment or anything. I guess the fix for this would be if they maybe just gated the companions behind the solo version of the dungeon. That seems a fair fix, as those are really easy. YES!!!! Right now Heroic Star Fortress is being presented as part of the basic storyline, and they need to stop that! It's even worse than having to do PvP to get a PvE companion, because all you have to do for the PvP is just participate. I will give an example: I love soloing Heroic Star Fortress on my Sage. I can do it with a DPS companion, no alliance buffs, no gadgets, no heroic moment, etc. It's so fun. I'm good at playing a sage. I can't complete Heroic Star Fortress at all on my Vanguard. LIke, at all. I'm sure if I grind up enough rep and alliance I could do it, but I want Veeroa as my companion because...well who cares why? That's who I want. I should be able to get all six companions by just doing regular Star Fortress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vyko Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 (edited) This is what doesn't add up for me. Why does a casual player need to complete every single little thing in the game? I think a lot of people say they are casual, when really they are not. I see nothing wrong with having harder content that requires some work to get enough gear and enough skill to complete. If you can't admit that some content "may not be for you" and insist on completing it all guess what? You are not a casual. Speaking as a casual player, my answer is "I don't need to complete every little thing in the game." I accept it, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with never stepping foot into a single OP or FP outside of solo mode if offered. I'm here for the BioWare storytelling. I had 9 years of my raiding fix in WoW, I'm not interested in continuing it. If BioWare made Knight of the Old Republic 3 as a single-player game, I'd probably never login to SWTOR again. But since they've stated that SWTOR is KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, etc... then this is my option. If they're going to represent it as a solo-friendly game, then they should probably back that up. I was here at launch and played for several months until the interminable grind sucked the fun out and I stopped. Came back at the KotFE launch and immediately starting telling all of my friends how amazing the solo experience was. Insta-subbed for 2 months. Bought some CC and got ready to settle in because it was FUN to solo. Great story. Sure, a little repetitive with the daily/weekly heroics, but because it was quick, it took some of the sting out of the semi-grind for influence, etc. When Eric stated plainly that Heroic 2+ was *intended* to be done with the companion absolutely as one of the two, that told me that it's solo-friendly content. Now after spending my money on a sub and starting to get invested in the story and characters, they vastly over-nerf and then say nothing about it. Feels a little bait-and-switch-y. I just tried to run a level 23 2+ heroic post-patch on my level 23 jedi shadow. Took my comp with me, set him to heal and ported in. Approached the first pack in stealth, opened on the first of the 3-mob pack (two silver/strongs and one standard mob) and was... wait for it.... dead in 5 GCDs. I was stunned for 3 of them. I'm no game developer, but I've got to think that that severity of nerf wasn't maybe the intended result. All that being said, I've no real desire to level any of my toons at this point, because it's like running into a brick wall. As a "new" player (most of my original toons were deleted), I don't have any Legacy buffs to play with, or built in influence for my companions. I'd like to think they took this scenario into account with the nerf, but it sure doesn't seem that way. They are utterly useless. Without the influence buffs I keep hearing about, my influence 12 trandoshan comp heals tick for ~225. The damage i was taking from the strong mobs was ~400-600. Couple of crits and that's the ballgame. The nerf was absolutely too strong and needs to be scaled back, and frankly shouldn't have gone straight to production. This is why there are PTR/PTS environments. Too many variables to just wing it. Let's say it was a 75% nerf. Why didn't they start at 10%, then another 10% until they hit the desired result? A change this massive without testing is... irresponsible. TL;DR - I don't feel a sense of entitlement to all content. I'm quite satisfied with the stated content of story modes and 2+ with relevant companions. Now I just need BioWare to provide relevant companions, because to a new toon with no buffs, the nerf is not a "greater challenge", it's a brick wall. I can't get through some of my Class quests if it involves a champ + strong/elite because the low-level companions (I have toons at 23, 35 and 44, and it doesn't get much better) just flatly can't stem the damage, and I'm low enough level that I don't have all of my DCDs and CC yet. And that's when the comps don't go "ooh shiny" and just ignore me. Edited November 20, 2015 by Vyko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senkoau Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Exactly and when you add in the fact I am casual (leave at 4am, get back after 5pm 7 day's a week with 2 10 hour shifts every weekend) a lot of the "soloable" heroics are just a brick wall and more are so unfun (particularly when they bug out on the last step and you have to reset to the begining 3 times) well there's no real reason to pay beyond I subbed when I had a mistaken impression of the game (because it was starwars ironically I rushed a bit) and now I've cancelled and am just using the subtime up. As for why I don't ask for help? Well this is a community that prefers to tell you to L2P or hit alt f4 to achive the desired result than actually give advice. Been playing since 4.0, part of a guild for most of that and only found out two day's ago about how "necessary" keybind are and yesterday that I could actually change the interface to display multiple bars at once. A lot of this community are not only not willing to help a new player learn but actually abuse or try to trick them when asked for help and when you add on that such a massive change to companions (which I personally needed at the previous level to survive heroics because I am still learning about the game) well its going to drive people away in droves. Which doesn't even address the fact that according to the definitions I've seen I'm not "casual" because I'm willing to post here (not willing to ask questions for help though given the reaction to my first post) and look up guides on how to improve my build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkbloom Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Exactly and when you add in the fact I am casual (leave at 4am, get back after 5pm 7 day's a week with 2 10 hour shifts every weekend) a lot of the "soloable" heroics are just a brick wall and more are so unfun (particularly when they bug out on the last step and you have to reset to the begining 3 times) well there's no real reason to pay beyond I subbed when I had a mistaken impression of the game (because it was starwars ironically I rushed a bit) and now I've cancelled and am just using the subtime up. As for why I don't ask for help? Well this is a community that prefers to tell you to L2P or hit alt f4 to achive the desired result than actually give advice. Been playing since 4.0, part of a guild for most of that and only found out two day's ago about how "necessary" keybind are and yesterday that I could actually change the interface to display multiple bars at once. A lot of this community are not only not willing to help a new player learn but actually abuse or try to trick them when asked for help and when you add on that such a massive change to companions (which I personally needed at the previous level to survive heroics because I am still learning about the game) well its going to drive people away in droves. Which doesn't even address the fact that according to the definitions I've seen I'm not "casual" because I'm willing to post here (not willing to ask questions for help though given the reaction to my first post) and look up guides on how to improve my build. See Bioware!!! This is why you need difficulty settings and not nerfs from orbit. How else are you going to keep new players hooked and old players who want a challenge involved? And no, there don't have to be "more rewards" for higher difficulty settings. Just achievements. The sorts of players who want challenge will be happy if all they get is an achievement. And as for me, I can play my sage on nightmare mode and my vanguard on EZ mode. And then I'll be a happy customer. And you'll have a lot of other happy customers too. How else are you going to make everyone happy except by having difficulty settings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALaggyGrunt Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 (edited) I'd like to take that and apply it to unranked warzones. Those have too many not-casuals in them. And GSF. Edited November 20, 2015 by ALaggyGrunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Good post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horrorfaneightys Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Excellent post. Sums up a lot of my thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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