Companion Change Feedback

[Psicotic]

i couldnt agree with you more they need to un-nerf the companions if people think they are too powerful you can dismiss them it is bs that now you cannot do heroics by yourself as was promised and have to try and find others to do them with you when this game has never been overly party up friendly

 

I must agree with you the few times i group on the game since im here 1st was a nightmare get the group and second wasnt a pleasant experience dont know maybe was just bad luck but let me without desire to group anymore, i miss soo much the comunity from CoX maybe for many was just another game but i never found on any other game a such great and friendly ppl. I wish here will be the same :/

[Satsuke]

Facepalm damned if they do, damned if they don't

 

No, "Damned if they do something trivial that in no way actually addresses the issue, damned if they don't" would be more appropriate.

 

It's like throwing a cup of water on a house fire. Did you do something? Yup! Did it matter? Nope!

[Joefjr]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Veeroa Denz is getting Tech Power while she has a Force Skill set, this making her sub par and vastly weaker than companions under her influence rank.

 

When sending tank companions into battle they don't all open up the same way, some taunt then leap, others leap then taunt, others taunt then grapple then leap is this intentional?

[Ghisallo]

Incoming 10% buff that doesn't really help very much!

 

AND THIS is exactly what I said. Any changes that are not a 100% complete revision to a broken state of the game is not going to make a certain player subgroup happy. We'll see what happens on Monday I suppose.

[JasmineMoldovia]

I thought things had changed, which is why I came back. Guess I was wrong but also right. Im not having any issues leveling and in fact, leveling is too easy- even post nerf. Then Eric writes, yeah, we want it to be that way. But do I, as your paying customer, want it to be that way? No, I don't. I want my companions to mean something during leveling or why have them in the first place?

 

As a paying customer I want my 4.0 gsi god droid level equivalent companions back nothing else will satisfy me. I never want to be forced to group up to do ANY content outside of an OP or FP. and I want that without having to affection level my companions to super high levels, I'm thinking about lvl 5 or 10.

[Biytor]

OMG! Who was the moron that thought cutting it this deeply was a good idea?

 

Why can't you Devs get you collective heads out of your ***es? Do you not understand how to tweak something? You don't make huge jumps, you make small corrections until you get it right. Leave it to the Devs to over tune something and then totally screw the pooch and massively under tune it in the span of 1 patch. Damn idiots.

[robertwdanger]

I'm not saying that those of you who like the newly nerfed companions are wrong. To each his own. The only thing I'd like to point out to the Devs is that for casual players like me, it would take me 6 months to build up to a set of 216 gear on one of my chars, let alone multiples. Where I was thoroughly enjoying 4.0, 4.0.2 makes me want to move to something else, and I've been here since launch. To me, there are a dozen ways of making the gameplay more challenging for those that want that, but for those of us who play casually and are invested in the story, there's no way (outside of raiding) to make things easier. The 4.0 comps were a perfect compromise to me, but oh well. I'll stick around to at least see BW's response.

[Twortas]

Even daybreak games stayed late to fix their TLP servers when they messed them up, i guess that would be to much to expect?

[heythereqt]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

THIS is what I like to see! ^^^

 

Thanks for communicating, and taking everyone's feedback into consideration equally and objectively. At a time when a lot of people are upset and threatening to leave the game for good, having solid communication from the dev team that shows they are actually listening to player feedback and taking it into consideration is a huge confidence and trust boost for myself, and many others I imagine.

 

Hopefully we can find a middle ground that both the "for companion nerf" and "against companion nerf" crowds can be happy with. Looking forward to the news on Monday.

[SamAnders]

Even daybreak games stayed late to fix their TLP servers when they messed them up, i guess that would be to much to expect?

 

Have they even acknowledged that there's a problem?

[Ghisallo]

Facepalm damned if they do, damned if they don't

 

Its a matter of damned now or damned later actually. Some people got used to the OP companions and as much as before the nerf used words like compromise, their ideas were "give me my way, the effect on the game plan itself is irrelevant".

 

The flip side is that even before the nerf I spoke with players PISSED by the nerf who said "yeah this is fun now but it's going to get old fast because it's so easy. I am probably going to let my sub lapse before Christmas and I will probably just resub in May to binge play the chapters."

 

Either way the lose players and thus lose money. It's simply a matter of when it happens.

 

The lesson to take away from this whole debacle? TEST!!!!!!! If they would have launched the companions in their post nerf condition we would not have this drama. We would have people complain about the grind but when have players NOT done this in an MMO. Some people would have left also sure, but it all would have been the standard forum emo...not this bad soap opera we ended up with.

[Satsuke]

Even daybreak games stayed late to fix their TLP servers when they messed them up, i guess that would be to much to expect?

 

Ouch, that's a low blow. Appropriate, but low.

[Thankar]

AND THIS is exactly what I said. Any changes that are not a 100% complete revision to a broken state of the game is not going to make a certain player subgroup happy. We'll see what happens on Monday I suppose.

 

Eh. Personally, I'm hoping for what should have been done in the beginning. Revert to 4.0 -10 to 20%, an incremental change. Then see what happens. Or reduce either the base stats or abilities, but not both.

[SamAnders]

Eh. Personally, I'm hoping for what should have been done in the beginning. Revert to 4.0 -10 to 20%, an incremental change. Then see what happens. Or reduce either the base stats or abilities, but not both.

 

They should have reverted to 4.0.1 already with the despawning issues.

[Thankar]

Its a matter of damned now or damned later actually. Some people got used to the OP companions and as much as before the nerf used words like compromise, their ideas were "give me my way, the effect on the game plan itself is irrelevant".

 

The flip side is that even before the nerf I spoke with players PISSED by the nerf who said "yeah this is fun now but it's going to get old fast because it's so easy. I am probably going to let my sub lapse before Christmas and I will probably just resub in May to binge play the chapters."

 

Either way the lose players and thus lose money. It's simply a matter of when it happens.

 

The lesson to take away from this whole debacle? TEST!!!!!!! If they would have launched the companions in their post nerf condition we would not have this drama. We would have people complain about the grind but when have players NOT done this in an MMO. Some people would have left also sure, but it all would have been the standard forum emo...not this bad soap opera we ended up with.

 

Nice thoughts, but the nerf was way too noticeable implemented all at once. If they did it incrementally over a couple patches, people might not have reacted so violently. But when you have folks going from running through content one night to dying no matter what the next, you are going to get screams.

 

Plus, people seem to forget that they advertised KotFE and the free 60 token as making it so you can just come back, or come in new and jump into the story. The 4.0 companions allowed that. The nerfed ones who stand around like the fell through and hit every branch in the stupid tree don't.

[Skauron]

Devs, instead put a companion strength slider in options, and let the player decide.. at the end of the day, you reach level 65 anyway.. and by then you are grouping up and no companions present so no problem remains.. but the journey getting to 65?? let folk set their own companion nerf to suit how much challenge they want.. its as simple as that.

 

CHOICE.

[malffurion]

only way i go for buffs is if it is like class buff other wise my sub runs out in 39 days and i would hate to cancel after subbing for over a year Edited November 21, 2015 by malffurion

[dscount]

Glad to see they responded before the weekend. That is a + in my book.

 

Hopefully the changes they are planning have some meat behind them that can keep MOST of the community happy.

[Reyze]

I hope the "Buff's" to companion's don't bring them back to the "Impossible to die with them out" ones we had before that about killed the game for me in a game you have the chance at failure as I have often said on this issue if its impossible to die using a major feature of the game IE companion's then no its no longer a game. I'll wait till I see how they do with the buffs if it gets back to the launch level of being unable to die I'll let my sub go and just sub when all the chapters are in to get them. I've been here since the start have my founder status and all and this sadden's me that some group of people wants to turn this into a "No chance of failure" game I don't want a brutally hard game but I don't also want something that I don't have to TRY at either a good middle ground would be nice though even when people ask for something like that those that just want to coast through the game without having to try complain and whine. Its things like this that kill mmo's when group like this starts poisoning the community.

[BaineOs]

Perhaps a bit too late now judging from that post but slow con and just finished uploading (plus I couldn't do it yesterday). Regardless this is the kind of frustration I end up experiencing since the patch.

 

[NikSunrider]

Firstly, Eric, thank you very much for first starting this thread, and for listening to the feedback it provided.

 

I had already provided private feedback so I didn't post in the thread, mostly to avoid the torches and pitchforks, but I am glad that common sense has prevailed.

 

I was critical of level-sync at first, but comps really balanced that out to me. Personally, my recommendation going forward is to make companion affection bonus an exponential thing, rather than incremental. Going from Rank 1 to Rank 10 is a matter of 11k credits. Even the newest players can afford this after a day or two of gameplay, making hte bonus exponential and relevant to the affection rank, rather than a flat increase, would basically reward the players who put in the dedication into maxing influence, while letting people have the option of keeping their comps in the "nerfed" state for when they don't find combat enjoyable. For instance, people with endgame gear.

 

At the same timne, it would let PVPers like myself, or casusl, to avoid the necessity to gear ourselves up by endgame standards for what is ultimately solo content.

[Ayakin_Solaris]

I couldn't care less tbh whether Star Fortress presents a challenge or not; if I want a challenge then I will try to do something like 2 or 3 man a Hard Mode Flashpoint, or do HM/NiM Ops or play Ranked pvp.

 

People who are saying that Star Fortress not being challenging when they have all class buffs, probably maxed Presence and also most if not all datacrons are forgetting this gives them a not insignificant advantage over newer, casual players. The class buffs alone is probably around a 5% difference.

 

Most of the player base for this game are casuals, attracted because its Star Wars. If they like having OP'd companions and being able to solo Star Fortress, then as long as it brings additional revenue to be spent on improving the game and boosting what was a flagging playerbase, then I'm all for it. Yes, they might well not really know their class, abilities and rotations properly, but they are casual players - they don't want to spend the time and effort to learn it inside out.

 

From a personal perspective, I was happy that the companions being OP'd made it quicker and less tedious to clear content that is not challenging now, but just takes longer. And I never use a healer companion; depending on class I am playing and how many channeled abilities it has as dps, I either use tank (so I get less pushback) or dps companion.

 

Companions did need a nerf, but:

1. The nerf was too hard; taking them back to pre-4.0 levels or making them 75% of what they were 4.0-4.02 would have been fine
   
2. Companion AI scripting is buggy, rendering them less effective than they should be
   
3. Tank companions are bugged and have 0% shield chance, so pull aggro but are squishy
   
4. Companion mainhand is bugged and buffs them
   

 

They should have (a) fixed some/all of these bugs (appreciate AI scripting may not be simple to fix), then (b) nerfed the companions but only to PTS for testing by players, then © made some tweaks to balance appropriately based on player feedback.

 

The way that this has instead been dealt with is quite simply a farce. Over-nerfing companions then doing an almost immediate u-turn.

[TFBWYAG]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

I don't want to come off as ungrateful, it's not my intent. My intent is just to be honest with you, as a long term, long time paying customer or yours.

 

In one mighty swing of the Nerfbat you completely broke the game. The game in which a very large portion of your subscribers were finally fully enjoying, and feeling as though it was money well spent for entertainment.

 

Some people spent more than a day trying to download a patch that ended up ruining their game experience once it finally installed. Believe me, if there was an option on our end to roll back a patch to a previous build, you probably wouldn't be surprised, as least I'd hope you wouldn't be surprised, just how many of us wouldn't be running our install on your current patch version.

 

The point I would like to get at is, since you were able to ruin so many paid customers game experience, (judging by the posts in this, and numerous other threads), in that one mighty swing of the Nerfbat, I for one, sure do hope you are not going to string us along with very minor fixes, say over the course of 10 or so patches, until you finally have reached a point that only a small amount of your paying customers are still not happy.

 

Again, I realize this may look like an angry, dissatisfied, ready to end our contract post, but it's honestly not intended to be one. Yes, right now, and obviously through the weekend, since we're stuck with the game as is until we hear something on Monday, (mind you, hear something, not get a fix), then it is true. I for one am not in a great mood looking toward the weekend with something I pay for being broken.

 

In the meantime, I shall wait for the next DEV report, maybe log in to the game a couple of times, just to check out the mountains of corpses I'm seeing folks talk about

[Ceinwyn]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Thanks for the update, Eric!

 

Forums getting me down, I didn't expect an update till at least next week Looking forward to the announcement.

[Ovaline]

I just want to preface this by saying that I am not an experienced MMO player. I started playing this game briefly a couple times over the years and dropped it quickly, and didn't really become a regular player until 12x EXP earlier this year. Prior to that I played WoW a bit years ago, but for the most part I am not particularly versed in MMO mechanics.

 

That being said, the solo content is still trivially easy, and the planetary heroics aren't much harder. I can solo planetary heroics as a DPS character, with Yuun, who is influence level 1, set to DPS mode, without much trouble. This isn't a case where 4.0 made the game easy and 4.0.2 made it hard. In 4.0, unless you were doing group content with no companions, the game played itself. I could set my companion to heal and be confident that I would never die, even if I went AFK during fights. I could set my companion to tank and send him in against heroic groups by himself and he would take absolutely no damage. Now after the recent patch, I have to at least contribute by mashing my character's generic basic attack if I want to win, but the enemies still generally don't put up much of a fight. Maybe in a fight with 2 golds I will actually have to try to put out decent DPS or possibly pop a defensive cooldown, but overall, I'm not being challenged much.

 

Look, I realize people play this game for the story, and some of them might want the combat to be easy. But the combat is already very easy. During 4.0, the combat was nonexistent. I don't understand how a person could prefer a game where your companion can clear heroic groups for you while you go afk the entire time. Even if the combat is meant to be easy, there still needs to be a failure condition. At a bare minimum, there has to be a possibility that I can die, or the combat is completely meaningless. Right now, if I don't pay attention and get swarmed or something, MAYBE then I'll be in danger of dying. In 4.0, there was no danger whatsoever.

 

EDIT: While typing up this post, I went AFK in a heroic area. Upon returning to the game, my companion was dead and I was at half health being wailed on by a gold enemy. It still took very little effort for me to pop one defensive cooldown and kill the enemy without really coming close to dying. That's how easy this game still is. I can still get attacked in heroics while AFK and not die.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Ovaline