Companion Change Feedback

[KwaiKang]

*nods in agreement*

 

*Fixed since I used slow clap incorrectly. Apologies*

 

Agreed

[svenbu]

Hi.

 

Your level

65

Roughly Average Item Rating

208-220 (no ops gear)

Discipline

Gunslinger, most datacrons, legendary buff, all maxed out pre 4.0 companion buffs

(Founder played for a long time - but not an OPS or PVP player)

 

Companion

HK-51, Koth

Companion role

Mostly Tank, Heal on special occasions

Companion Influence level

25 and 23

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?)

Mostly SOLO (not by choice), Planet Heroics, Tact FP

Your personal experience while playing this content

 

SOLO SF: No problem what so ever. You have to use some of your abilities to survivie - but mostly fun to play.

Heroic SF: Pre 4.0.2 I got through it until the main boss. And until then it was challenging and fun to play (Alderaan) Attempted to kill the last boss 5 or 6 times and gave up. (Gear was not that good and comp. was low on inf. (No buffs either). Fun? No - not for me. Assume I'll play this through in a group - which is fine for me.

Planetary Heroics: They are all from a breeze to "s*** what happened?" That is independent of the comp. The later Heroics can be hard (harder then intended I suspect) (Yes, looking at you Makeb).

 

In general I do think the nerf was to harsh. But I noticed as well that comps are outright not working as they should. HK for instance has this weird thing that - put on tank stance - he storms ahead takes aggro and jumps back to player (Me beeing gunslinger - turreted down). By standing on top of me he puts me in the line of fire - and I have to move and loose DPS in the process. Koth works much better that way. But both have a problem of keeping mobs aggroed. As healer .. well they are weak - let's leave it at that. Both are sometimes just standing around - thinking about something - and midfight - suddenly wake up. :-) Can be fun too but not in a challenging instance.

 

Hope that helps.

 

One thing - as others have mentioned already - I do not understand. Why on earth are you guys not using PTR for this kind of testing..?

[KwaiKang]

The companion nerf went too far. The companion is using pillows to attack and the healing is an issue,

[Ferretfur]

Restoring the damage inflicted on you, which ought to require you to get aggro from all mobs so healer can focus on you (healer comp).

 

The latter, however, doesn't work as I presume it ought to be intended. In 4.0, the healer comp was also the best tank, because they could healer aggro packs and you could peel them off one by one, whilst comp kept itself and the player topped off. This was too strong, no question.

However, now the healer struggles even to keep either itself or the player alive. It brings too little to the table to be worthwhile.

 

What I personally think you should do is boosting the heals a tad. Not much, but the major nerf was perhaps, if you excuse me, a bit reckless.

The second thing is to give all comps a reduction in mechanics damage taken. Don't spend hours improving AI so that comps don't stand in red circles of doom, just make them partially immune to the effect.

 

With the healers--oh boy. I was having to use offensive and defensive cooldowns on almost every single trash pull. Died myself a couple of times on my sniper.

 

The healing companions are simply not good enough. This is especially true because newer players will be using healing companions to help them along while they learn how the game works. If you want newer players to stay, the healing companions absolutely need to be buffed. DPS companions are in a good place. Most newer players won't use them much anyway until they have their classes learned pretty well. Tanks need either a shield or more defense to compensate for not having a shield.

 

This sounds about right, healing was hit too hard, while DPS seems effective. I have also been using DPS more as it is the quicker option.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ferretfur

[jmcdermottuk]

Several characters at low level due to coming back after a long absence. I was taking advantage of the 12x xp to see some class stories I had missed. I was really enjoying the game pre patch because I was doing only class missions and a few planet story arcs when I was behind a level or two.

 

Post patch:

Agent sniper

Jugg tank

Vanguard tank

Guardian tank

 

All around the 30 mark. Comps all around the high teens for influence. All gear kept up to date with data crystals, fully geared in adaptive armour and weapons on all chars. Levelling content is considerably more difficult that it was pre patch. Definately not casual friendly. Not a huge problem for me as I've been playing MMO's since 1999 so I understand how classes work. Not as much fun by any stretch of the imagination.

 

L65 Sorc Lightning spec Gear level 190.

First Star Fortress done after the patch and it was hard work. Solo mode obviously. Several times I had to run away from pulls, get around a corner and heal myself because my comp wasn't keeping up with the rediculous amount of incoming damage that burned through my barrier in seconds.

 

Very slow going as I had to be very careful not to pull to much. Haven't bothered since because if I have to grind better gear by doing that every day I'll go nuts. Haven't touched my sorc since.

 

I came back and re-subbed because the game was supposed to have been made to concentrate on story and the grind reduced, which it was pre patch. Now it's not fun and I have cancelled my sub. My days of grinding endless difficult content are over, I've done far too much of it. I wanted to play for the story and that's not fun any more.

 

Pre patch I would have subbed for months so I could replay classes to see both light and dark sides on every class. Post patch, well, sub cancelled. Nuff said.

[mephistosaurus]

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating 216 - 220 mix

Discipline Operative healer

Companion Lana or

Valkorian's baby momma

 

Companion role Tank

Companion Influence level 20 and 18

Healer was always a rough grind on solo content, but wow you must really hate us now...

 

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating 216 - 220 mix

Discipline Lightning Sorc

Companion Lana or Talos

Companion role Tank or DPS

Companion Influence level 35 and 20

Again bioware, why do you hate the players....

 

Your level 63

Roughly Average Item Rating 198

Discipline Lightning Vengence Juggernaut

Companion Lana (was playing story before update)

Companion role Healer / Dps

Companion Influence level 10( ish)

Man you nerfed her heals, she still steals agro sometimes, and nags me like I didn't take the trash out... ***?

 

the more the nerf hammer strikes the forge, the more you warp space/game/time. Hawking did the math, it brokeded...

[Ferretfur]

I have many characters and classes across many levels. So here is my overall assessment:

 

What I can say is that the companions are now what they should have been from the start.

 

The way they were is that I could start a fight and alt-tab to do other stuff and then come back to have the fight won. There's no way that this was what they wanted. Now they are back to "normal".

 

People were spoiled with ridiculously overpowered companions and now they're gone and they don't know how to deal with actually playing anymore.

And thanks for an AMAZING expansion.

 

You do realize that companions cant be "back to normal" when they are actually weaker than geared companion before the new chapters.

 

I admit they are mostly workable, but not so happy they are less effective than even before 4.0 with Yavin gear.

 

I agree though that the new expansion for story and content and a lot of the extras is AMAZING.

[Adaarye]

At this point I don't really care how you and your team respond. The damage has been done. Strolling into the forums like you have no idea what is happening in your own community and posting this thread with an aire of complete ignorance of the situation just makes you and your team look foolish.

 

This is truly the unpardonable part of the whole debacle. The PTB's total lack of regard for so many of the player base and the about face on the promised casual friendly state of the game.

 

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior from any service business and as it stands, the OP has only garnered more ill will.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Adaarye

[Pirindolo]

Character Level 65

Armor: 192 bonus armorings with 216 enc/mods amd 208 augments, MH 208 barrels, 216 enh/mods, 216 ear, 192 relics, 220 other stuff

Every healing classes, and sniper/gunslinger

Star Fortress companions and Niko Ocarr (all rank 50)

DPS or Tank when using healer characters, Healer when using DPS characters

H2 weekly quests and heroic SF

 

Experience

 

H2 weekly quests

These are, of course, doable, but they take longer, quite longer than before when using healer characters, because the dps of the companions is too low, and the dps of the tank is practically non exixtent. If I use a DPS character I struggle in some areas, like Makeb, where I die way more than before.

 

It is not a matter of doability. It's a matter of fun. Grinding heroics day after day is never fun, and if the task takes x2 time, it becomes x2 boring. Strong companions were, in no way, breaking anything while doing H2 weekly quests.

 

H2 Star Fortress solo, buffed

With all aliance buffs on (including the 4 consoles and the starting big thing, I can do it, but not thans to the help of my companion, who does practically nothing. Tank companions die in seconds. DPS companions die even faster if they get aggro. Thank God I can use the machine gun aaliance buff to prevent that from happening, but that could be equally done with the companion dismissed.

 

H2 Star Fortress solo, unbuffed

Simply impossible.

[Danylia]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 216/220 (all token gear)

Discipline: Concealment Operative

Companion: 2V-R8 (for the 2500 kills Achievement)

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 10

 

Content:

Weekly Heroic: Little to zero challenge

Star Fortress solo: Little to zero challenge

Star Fortress heroic: Challenging but doable without dying; most challenge comes from the "4 meters positional zero AoE" spec

One and Only Star Fortress: Got it pre 4.0.2, haven't tried post 4.0.2

[doublefreeze]

As I Promised in the post before this, I would be posting as a "leveling character views"

 

 

 

 

• Your level : 33
  
• Roughly Average Item Rating : 80
  
• Discipline : Concealment
  
• Companion : Kaliyo
  
• Companion role : heal
  
• Companion Influence level : 14
  
• Your personal experience while playing this content
  

 

 

https://youtu.be/B8fj3vZrrhI

 

 

It much harder doing leveling content + story line which should be semi easy to do , and understanding the basic of some character is hard to do, when you don't have all the said "combo" ability / advance ability to use do proper combo. And making it an requirement to make each player play all 8 story for and icon around them , or jsut for their 100% story need for all character in the Legacy shouldn't force player to make people play an class that will hate majority do to the character play styles.

 

Throughout the majority of this video I thought I was in the twilight zone. You had no issue killing things and never dropped below 60% health but yet kept commenting as if you were having difficulty? The story quest boss was an actual threat because his damage output was higher than everything else. You still had a bunch of abilities you could of used that would of made the fight a joke. Even if you would of died you could of res'd and faced that boss alone since the 2 regular mobs stay dead. Also is it really a terrible thing if you have some deaths while leveling to 65? Having difficulty would be dying over and over again or not being able to progress.

 

The best part of the video though is it shows a legit issue with companion AI. For whatever reason the companion completely bugged out when you were around 25% and stopped healing completely. That happening is why you came very close to dying. If they do anything with companions they should at least look into and fix what causes that to happen.

 

Btw was your gear around lvl 30? Another issue being overlooked is now that you level so fast your gear doesn't keep up so you can have gear that is low level which will make story quests harder.

[Jedi_riches]

I think its just me that's having problems with planetary H2's, but I really did not like doing Belsavis Heroics last night mobs tend to be grouped in packs of at least 6 (2 gold and 4 silver) with usually another gold wondering about (which always seems to reach back to me before I can down the said group above, and with little or no heals, both me and my companion end up sub 25%, with me having popped all my defensive cooldowns that I know and sometimes even heroic moment. Then after the fight I have to stand around to both heal up and wait for some of these defensive cooldowns to become available again.

 

To me the companion nerf has completly ripped the fun out of the heroics and guess what for the alliance stuff you need to grind them just great.

[Zhiroc]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 208 + 4-5 216's , but only using 186-200 augments

Discipline: Sage Balance (DPS)

Companion: Lana

Companion role: Mostly tank

Companion Influence level: 33

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) Post-patch, only solo

Your personal experience while playing this content

 

Planetary heroics are no generally no problem, unless I goof and pull two elite groups at once. I typically have Lana in Tank mode, except when doing lower-level planets... Balmorra is probably the breakpoint, where I have her in DPS because it's so easy I can just race through it quicker if we are both DPS. Even at the highest level content on Makeb, or solo SF, I don't need heals because Balance has lots of self-healing from DPS. Pre-patch, I only needed Lana in god-mode healing for Heroic SF, and only at the end.

 

So, I can't comment too much on the healing nerfs as I haven't needed to rely on healing, Otherwise, I find the changes fine in the DPS and tanking roles. All I can say about healing is that before it seemed WAY too much.

[LordArtemis]

Instead of spending time trying to pick apart other peoples posts, perhaps folks should post their own impressions and stats.

 

Let your numbers speak for your position instead of trying to discount others.

[Deathsightofhell]

Throughout the majority of this video I thought I was in the twilight zone. You had no issue killing things and never dropped below 60% health but yet kept commenting as if you were having difficulty? The story quest boss was an actual threat because his damage output was higher than everything else. You still had a bunch of abilities you could of used that would of made the fight a joke. Even if you would of died you could of res'd and faced that boss alone since the 2 regular mobs stay dead. Also is it really a terrible thing if you have some deaths while leveling to 65? Having difficulty would be dying over and over again or not being able to progress.

 

The best part of the video though is it shows a legit issue with companion AI. For whatever reason the companion completely bugged out when you were around 25% and stopped healing completely. That happening is why you came very close to dying. If they do anything with companions they should at least look into and fix what causes that to happen.

 

Btw was your gear around lvl 30? Another issue being overlooked is now that you level so fast your gear doesn't keep up so you can have gear that is low level which will make story quests harder.

 

I play as an skill player, but asan player 1st time, they would Do far worst, which why i I didn't use some ability , as new palyer you wouldn't have your "keybind" on Crtl/F1-12's and ect. plus i'm playin an classi don't enjoy , which you shouldn't be forced to play an class you dislike expertly. and for the Final part the Video I did use all 4 my buffs, without the 4 buff i woulda die cause the crap heals

 

Anyone with half an brain could see that miles away, I even state I'll paly like a new player who would be playi nthe game 1st time, so lack of combo skill knewledge, using all ability, and casually do the story would be like.

 

 

Your statement prove nothing.

[Pyosos]

ok that will be simple. all my character have around 2k in presence

 

lvl 65 mercenary, dps mercenary (i know it very well)

mostly 216 (2 part in 208, and two part in 220). augment 186

companion HK-51 influence 32, in healing mode.

tried the star fortress heroic 2+ before the change, the first paladins was hard but ok, the second one beat me to death in 3 hit, even with HK in tank mode that was impossible to kill him. i avoided him after some try. the archon fight was impossible to do, i died even more quickly.

didn't tried the star fortress heroic 2+ since the change, but i have made the dailies and weekly (Czerka, Oricon, etc...) and they are very very long now..... even before the new extension that was not so long...

 

 

lvl 65 powertech. tank shield (i know how to play it)

half in 190 green and others half 208 purple (augment in 208)

Companion, Rokuss with 21 influence. healer mode

made the star fortress 2+ with a friend, who is a lvl 65 mercenary healer half in 208 purple and other half in 216 purple, augment 208 (she know very well how to play her classe) she use veeroa denz with 31 in influence and in tank mode (tried her in dps, but tank was doing more damage).

We have made 5 star fortress heroic 2+ before the change, and alderaan star fortress 2+ after the change in companion (i used treek with 15 influence for the first one)

before the change, that was challenging, fun, we died sometime, and laugh a lot.

After the change, that was long, boring, not fun at all, we died a lot, had very hard time, and had to spam heroic moment a lot.

 

 

Lvl 65 vanguard. tank, shield. (i know how to play it)

almost all in 190 blue, and some part in 192 purple.

All the mandatory companion that you force us to use in the new content, basic influence i get in talking and doing the content, i don't no more give gift to these one, after having HK55 dying 5mn after spending a lot to augment his influence on another character. all in healer mode

At this time only do the new content story mission, that was awesomely long, painful, had to use all the time the heroic instant to try to kill gold mobs, need to wait long time between each fight.....

if i want to try to the heroic? i don't think so, i hate spending hours grinding.

 

What i can said, tank become boring to play, too much long.... dps are very hard now, and healer are near to impossible to play....

 

My tought about all that?

Good thing : no more lag on the fleet or odessen, this is mostly empty. i can laugh at "pro-player" whinning they found no one for operation, flashpoint, heroic.

 

Bad thing : slow madly grinding is back..... you need to grind massively to get good influence for your companion, when you start from lvl 1, that will be very long and boring, just to lost your companion that you fighted to have a good influence, for that they help you just a little....

Then you do the new story, and you're forced to have companion that you don't want, and you need to grind again for their influence, and for what? for that they die, yeah so nice..... then building the influence of the new companion just sucks.

and then you grind again for building influence for the alliance....

 

Conclusion

Thank you so much to have removed all the fun, and have bring back a much worse grinding than before....

if i'm going to stop my subscription? this is possible, that will depend of my friend, at this time we are trying others games to have fun.

[cottonbud--]

For me, it boils down to this. I WAS playing for a few hours at a time, maybe more if I had nothing on. Now I'm playing for an hour maybe less and just not wanting to play anymore.

 

I come to a video game to enjoy my free time, I don't want to have to slog away on the internet learning rotations and whatever else I need to play 'well' now, that does not appeal to me. I'm not trying to be the best player, with the best gear, and I feel like the only people who wanted the nerf are people who feel like they want to be that top dog. And that's not how a lot of people play

[Senkoau]

Just wanted to say that you people are all noobs. I completed tactical flashpoints solo and all heroics on every planet.

How it is difficult for you to play after nerf if it is easier then it was before 4.0? People always complain...

 

Such a helpful and insightful post for the feedback thread, you sir are brilliant and have solved the problem here have a cookie.

 

On topic So far my biggest problems have been a few champion mobs on Nar Shadda I just beat them before the nerf with my healing companion keeping me up and into the warren mission on Alderaan. I'm still playing and learning how to actually use my Jedi guardian have no legacy buffs and only the datacrons prior to this point. I can't comment on these post nerf as I've levelled up gear ALOT since then and more importantly had some very helpful advice on my build combined with no time right now to replay them to see how they work currently.

 

However my gear at that stage was level/planet appropriate (I'd been doing all the heroics and side missions so my gear was what dropped for these planets) while now I've bought a bunch of gear that I'm fairly sure is well above what I'm meant to have (endurance for instance is several thousand points above planet max). Class was a Jedi Guardian with I'm pretty sure average lvl 96 to lvl 178 gear and was using Kira at lvl 16 with 2439 influence after I'd been steadily pouring the companion gifts I was crafting down her throat.

 

Still I can't really comment on the comnpanion nerf beyond noting most mobs regular attacks do more damage the healer can keep up with much less when you have a group of them attacking you.

 

Anyway the point I wantd to make is Into the Warrens has a lot of groups (2 gold elites + 2 trash/strong) mobs in a confined area of that courtyard and its almost impossible for a non-stealth new player to avoid agroing multiple groups (especially with the HEALING companion randomly jumping off and attacking them). If you want casual/new players to do these missions (those not in end game gear, highly skilled or with large amounts of legacy buffs) but aren't inclined to boost the companions another option may be downgrading the number of mobs.

 

Please note I say number here not difficulty even post nerf with my limited skills I could take on 1 group with its 2 golds but when taking a step stirred up 1-2 other groups in that area and they all have push/pulls its very frustrating. I died 3 times in a row within seconds giving me no time to actually learn/adjust my build in response because I had no idea where I was going wrong.

 

@Draewind

You MIGHT want to try Secret World. Personally I'm going off it a little as lately it seems to be more grind and RNG spend cash grabs but it had a very immersive storyline in my opinion, they even have an ingame flavour reason for why you respawn after dying. Basic premise is real world all the myths and legends (vampires, werewolves, secret monolithic conspiracy groups etc) are real even if the truth is not what the stories would have you believe. We just got an ability in a recent expansion that was based on story choices we made when we first came out.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Senkoau

[Halinalle]

Awesome, you can solo one silver at a time, have a cookie!

 

I know, I could make it more challenging by never using stealth and stealth cc (main reasons why I love stealth classes) but then I would not play Operative correctly.

[Chinane]

How about instead of asking for specific feedback define guidelines for the desired performance?

 

For example companion healing output:

 

Player as DPS

- slight overheal vs. typical elite NPC (= typical heroic encounter recovery phase)

- slight deficiency vs. elite + strong

- moderate deficiency vs. elite + 2 strong (=typical heroic pull should be manageable without CC, as long as DPS is fine)

 

Player as Tank:

- slight overheal vs. elite + strong

- slight deficiency vs. elite + 2 strong

 

Companion DPS output:

 

Player as DPS:

- sufficient DPS for player to end up at roughly 40% (or more?) after 1 elite + 2 strong

 

Player as Tank:

- player at 70% after e+2s pull

 

Results should be somewhat comparable then. Healer companion means recovery in the final phase of a fight (only elite remaining) with the longest fight duration, 2 DPS = faster fight, but longer recovery, T+DPS = slightly longer fight but less recovery.

 

Numbers are just rough guidelines, as I'm not sure about the frequency of stronger than standard pulls, but you'd probably use some kind of CC there.

 

That method should automatically give you results people can work with. If you tune it for high levels, level scaled content will probably be a bit easier, but that's already the case anyway.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Chinane

[valkyriewiz]

ill take back companions 3.0 thank you. i'm not interested in any *** backwards fix that will get pushed. Edited November 20, 2015 by valkyriewiz

[doublefreeze]

I play as an skill player, but asan player 1st time, they would Do far worst, which why i I didn't use some ability , as new palyer you wouldn't have your "keybind" on Crtl/F1-12's and ect. plus i'm playin an classi don't enjoy , which you shouldn't be forced to play an class you dislike expertly. and for the Final part the Video I did use all 4 my buffs, without the 4 buff i woulda die cause the crap heals

 

Anyone with half an brain could see that miles away, I even state I'll paly like a new player who would be playi nthe game 1st time, so lack of combo skill knewledge, using all ability, and casually do the story would be like.

 

 

Your statement prove nothing.

 

Ok I wasn't really attacking you so you don't need to get all defensive. This quest isn't at the beginning of the game its on a low lvl 30s planet where new players will have some idea of their abilities and what they are doing.

 

Not sure what you mean by "forced to play a class you dislike".

 

You are giving too much credit to the buffs. You would of died because the companion bugged out and stopped healing.

 

If you weren't using abilities and playing in a way to imitate a new/noob player then doesn't this show they would be ok? You went through the whole thing with no deaths and only had a scare on the story boss. You do understand its hard to say something is difficult when you show a video of you doing it without having difficulty?

[Duck_of_Death]

I will make it short.

SWTOR 4.0 was the best time I ever had in this game. So the question is, is it still fun. And the answer is NO.

 

A monkey could tell you that something is wrong when it is faster to use your rest ability than wait for your healer companion to... well, heal you up... after losing 15% of your health after combat.

[geschmonz]

Probably Bioware should add a "Is it still fun"-metric to their decision making process.

 

Or they should lower the priority for the hardcore-gamer-metric, and raise the priority for the solo player metric.

 

Or they just should learn how to properly create patches without upsetting 70% of their customers.

 

Means: To add a "customer happiness metric".

 

Anyone want to join me on the blog "When hardcore gamer developers destroy gameplay based on their bias"?

Edited November 20, 2015 by geschmonz

[LordArtemis]

I don't think it is fair to blame hardcore gamers for this change. Bioware has made plenty of ill-advised changes without supportive feedback or suggestions....and this could very well be an example of that.

 

They would have likely made this kind of silly change on their own at some point. Unfortunately some times I feel like players try to save Bioware from themselves, like some kind of family member that makes bad decisions on a constant basis.

 

It seems to be that Biowares most steadfast and ruthless competitor is Bioware. It seems to me, sometimes at least, they do not do themselves any favors.