Companion Change Feedback

[Ghisallo]

I don't like the fact that they did away with the class-specific stories. However, I still don't see what the change solves. This is not a question of need to grind. I don't mind grinding. I did it when the first version came out, before all the changes. However, between level-sync and comp-nerf, I am unable to solo Flashpoints and Heroics. That's the problem.

 

I used to be able to grind my way to the higher level, and then grind my way to gear myself and my comps (not Ops level gear, but just at-level gear), and then I would go back to the lower level heroics and flashpoints and solo them.

 

Now despite the fact that I am L65, I am level-synced down to only a couple of levels higher than the Heroic/Flashpoint I am attempting. My comp's gear doesn't matter. So I am essentially stuck. This is not a problem that grinding can solve.

 

Your right your comps gear doesn't matter. That gear grind was replaced with affection. See this is another thing I think people miss. This expac really wasn't about me, (the jack of all trades who does a little of everything in an MMO on a casual basis) the player like you, or the hard core OPs guy. This expac is about attracting new players.

 

The biggest hurdle to getting new players to stay in an MMO is them catching up to the level cap. Well you can do that with the "auto lvl 60 token" BUT the companions made that a problem. You leveled their prior effection through the class story. You got them geared up by leveling until SoR where 2 quests would gear up a companion completely. Free 60 bypasses all of that. So they did a reset on the companions to ease the transition of new players into the game.

 

Once you accept this, that as far as the game is concerned you are starting from scratch AND that the heroic2 missions are of varying difficulty, you figure out, not saying right or wrong again mind you, that you are intended to grind, to get the gifts to feed the companion to increase their power. I mean they did say..

 

We expect some players to find these challenging initially—maybe even needing a friend’s help--but once the player earns better gear, a few levels of Influence with their companion, and has a greater understanding of the game, they should be able to solo the hardest of these missions.

 

So that to me says you have two choices. 1. focus on the h2s you can do right now until you get those gifts to raise influence and learn the class a little better OR 2. yes, get some friends to help. You don't need the friends, you just need to recognize some of the missions may be a little too much to start.

 

Now does this run the risk of sodding off the existing player? Yep and I said this was a HUGE risk as soon as they announced the changes to companions. I said "people are not going to be happy that their companions will be weaker to start. I was told one of two things... some people said I was wrong, because they did not want to believe that BW would do that (even though they said they would, smh) or that it wouldn't matter because it would be for the good of the story. The thing is they story has to pause and then even end sometime. when that does the only other thing to do is leave or dive into the playable content where the new mechanic and its effects can not be avoided.

 

I said when they announced this expac that even the story fans cheering could well be upset. If you read and listened to everything the nature of this expac was actually pretty predictable, I described exactly what we see today AND the complaints on these forums in May. People were so seduced by the "story" mantra however that they allowed wishful thinking to cloud dispassionate reading of all the stuff the announced regarding mechanics (level sync and the like) and companion changes. They said I was wrong then but are now making the complaints I predicted they would. I guess that is why I am a little frustrated... I called this in May so am not surprised and I will admit sometimes when something appears obvious to me I will be like "what? how did you not see this coming?"

[Ghisallo]

"because he is so hot " (not exaggerating there)"

 

I knew you weren't, and I don't remember which page I saw it on, but I did see that original post at some point through my reading. Mind you, I haven't read each and every post, but I did, for some odd reason, seem to remember reading that one

 

I fully understand stuff like that irritating to someone, or anyone for that matter, who either a) hasn't had issues with the changes, b) even if they have issues with the changes, don't mind working through them, c) enjoys the game testing their skills to the furthest reaches, or 4) <---just kidding, or d) wants to be proud of their accomplishments in game, because for them, they have accomplished something that they worked hard at.

 

I myself am a middle of the road player. I do get good at the characters, rotations, abilities I have with each, figure out a tuff encounter, even if it takes 3 or 4 times to get it down, and so on. I get lost sometimes in the storyline, that's not a complaint, that's a good thing, I was about 16 when Darth Vader first lit up the big screen and I was one of the kids that paid to go see it probably about 5 times, of course it was only .75 cents in 1977, so I didn't break the bank. But, I play for both reasons, storyline, and gameplay, I just don't get into the OPs or PvP aspect of it. At the same time, I don't question why others do. I guess if I was still a teenager and we had this stuff, heck yeah, I'd be jumping in with those guys too.

 

Anyway, back to topic, I do see that some of the reasons given in the threads are for what could be considered over the top requests, though I say that loosely, because I don't know who is behind the post. It could be a 10 a year old who is just trying to have fun and doesn't want, or have, the time to invest in between homework and chores around the house, or even worse, Bedtime or it could be an adult who has many responsibilities and uses his/her game-time as an escape from reality. So I read those posts, take it for what that person may or may not be feeling, and onto the next. I found many posts along the reading of pages that actually very closely resembled mine. I won't go into detail again, but in short, mine is that I just want my Companions to seem to be close to me in level, like Shadow of Revan and all content before it. But that's when I geared them myself and always kept their gear on even keel with mine.

 

And then of course on the negative posts, the ones that do nothing but tear down the previous post, I just and move onto the next. In all fairness, if I gave it much thought, I'd probably just feel bad for the poster being trolled, put on my Superman Outfit, if I had a Phone Booth close enough, and defend the original poster. Which as you know, opens up a whole new back and forth,,,

 

Here's another of my bottom liners, I may or may not agree with 75% of the posts/reasons for or against, but I've completed my mission if I find a few that are on the same page as me.

 

Oh I am a middle of the road player too. I have a wife, a train wreck of a work schedule (base 84 hours ever 2 weeks in 12 hours shifts 8pm-8am with mandatory overtime which can easily turn a 12 hour day into a 20 hour day). I also need to keep in shape for the job and as I get older that becomes harder .

 

That said when I look at these games, maybe because I have played them since their inception, going all the way back to dialing up a BBS to play a MUD, I say you need to provide a game not where everyone can do everything BUT where you provide content for as many different factions as possible.

 

This means "user experiences will vary." At the basic level you build it around the average player. That means most should say, when they start, well that took a little effort, but it gets easier as they grind. Others will hit one that is really hard for them and they may need help at first. Eventually however it will be doable, and yes some people will blast through it. As you progress upwards this dynamic continues until at some point some players may hit a wall.

 

That is why they call these MMOs "theme parks" vs a "sand box" because there are different rides and all rides simply don't cater equally to all people. Now I know not everyone agrees with this design concept BUT it has always been SWTOR's concept. I think the problem here is that before lvl sync the new stuff was genuinely "new". This made the difficulties a little more bearable.

 

Now the difficulties are in something that we used to steamroll before. Now the OP state of companions for about 4 weeks masked this issue. First players could say "thy over nerfed them because elitists cried." BUT now in this thread we see... nope it was BW's plan for stuff to actually have a challenging component to them. TBH that is why all the complaints about companions annoys me. If you have an issue with the companions that is really only a symptom.

 

The problem is the core design concept of the expansion itself, imo. One way or the other, if people have issues now they will have issues. Now it's that the heroic missions are harder than they think they should be because before level sync they used to steam roll them. Depending on the actual effect of the companion change they push on Tuesday in a month the problem will be "how many times do I have to do this dang heroic I already did 1000 times BEFORE this expansion even dropped?" The only difference will be how soon based on how easy the changes make them.

 

Now, or later, it doesn't matter, existing players are going to have an issue with this expac because it doesn't feel "new" unless you are in that story and now we are only going to see one brief chapter ever 30 odd days. People are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to the issues imo. I get why, most gamers think about "am I having fun NOW" not will I still find this fun in January. The devs however need to think about January and March and April etc. It thus behooves players, imo, to try and think in the same way on occasions. It helps you understand not only WHY devs do what they do but also see what the real problems were and not be blinded by symptoms.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Nwmoon]

Oh I am a middle of the road player too. I have a wife, a train wreck of a work schedule (base 84 hours ever 2 weeks in 12 hours shifts 8pm-8am with mandatory overtime which can easily turn a 12 hour day into a 20 hour day). I also need to keep in shape for the job and as I get older that becomes harder .

 

That said when I look at these games, maybe because I have played them since their inception, going all the way back to dialing up a BBS to play a MUD, I say you need to provide a game not where everyone can do everything BUT where you provide content for as many different factions as possible.

 

This means "user experiences will vary." At the basic level you build it around the average player. That means most should say, when they start, well that took a little effort, but it gets easier as they grind. Others will hit one that is really hard for them and they may need help at first. Eventually however it will be doable, and yes some people will blast through it. As you progress upwards this dynamic continues until at some point some players may hit a wall.

 

That is why they call these MMOs "theme parks" vs a "sand box" because there are different rides and all rides simply don't cater equally to all people. Now I know not everyone agrees with this design concept BUT it has always been SWTOR's concept. I think the problem here is that before lvl sync the new stuff was genuinely "new". This made the difficulties a little more bearable.

 

Now the difficulties are in something that we used to steamroll before. Now the OP state of companions for about 4 weeks masked this issue. First players could say "thy over nerfed them because elitists cried." BUT now in this thread we see... nope it was BW's plan for stuff to actually have a challenging component to them. TBH that is why all the complaints about companions annoys me. If you have an issue with the companions that is really only a symptom.

 

The problem is the core design concept of the expansion itself, imo. One way or the other, if people have issues now they will have issues. Now it's that the heroic missions are harder than they think they should be because before level sync they used to steam roll them. Depending on the actual effect of the companion change they push on Tuesday in a month the problem will be "how many times do I have to do this dang heroic I already did 1000 times BEFORE this expansion even dropped?" The only difference will be how soon based on how easy the changes make them.

 

Now, or later, it doesn't matter, people are going to have an issue with this expac because it doesn't feel "new" unless you are in that story and now we are only going to see one brief chapter ever 30 odd days. People are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to the issues imo. I get why, most gamers think about "am I having fun NOW" not will I still find this fun in January. The devs however need to think about January and March and April etc. It thus behooves players, imo, to try and think in the same way on occasions. It helps you understand not only WHY devs do what they do but also see what the real problems were and not be blinded by symptoms.

 

I think it's pretty safe to say, I agree with all that. The reason I'm not 100% sure I agree with all of it is, I'm standing my ground as far as feeling my Companions should be behaving as though I geared them like I used to, meaning I'm level 65 on my Sage, with 208 - 220 gear ratings, so if I were to gear up Lana, or another Companion, that's what they would also have. Since 4.0.2 dropped, I don't feel my Companion is doing as well as they would be, if I was picking out their gear. And also, before I go to far into it, I do get the whole level up Influence thing, they will become stronger/better, but in the case of my Sage for this example, I have Lana at 26 if I recall, and Deadeye Leyta at 11 and I actually did better using Deadeye then I did using Lana, so things just aren't seeming right all the way around with Companions. Hope that makes sense.

 

Or maybe if I said, level sync is no problem at all for me. Yes, there is a BUT. But, when I go back to Nar Shaddaa for example, then my Companion should be doing as good as they did do, back when I was actually leveling on Nar Shaddaa. In my honest opinion, I have less faith in any of my Companions to help me now, then I ever did in the 4 years of my time in SWtOR.

 

Which in turn, leads me back to, I'm not on the OP Companion boat, I'm on the make them useful again boat. There is a difference, one boat can handle the roughest of Oceans, the boat I'm trying to get on can handle the Stream.

[Ghisallo]

I think it's pretty safe to say, I agree with all that. The reason I'm not 100% sure I agree with all of it is, I'm standing my ground as far as feeling my Companions should be behaving as though I geared them like I used to, meaning I'm level 65 on my Sage, with 208 - 220 gear ratings, so if I were to gear up Lana, or another Companion, that's what they would also have. Since 4.0.2 dropped, I don't feel my Companion is doing as well as they would be, if I was picking out their gear. And also, before I go to far into it, I do get the whole level up Influence thing, they will become stronger/better, but in the case of my Sage for this example, I have Lana at 26 if I recall, and Deadeye Leyta at 11 and I actually did better using Deadeye then I did using Lana, so things just aren't seeming right all the way around with Companions. Hope that makes sense.

 

Or maybe if I said, level sync is no problem at all for me. Yes, there is a BUT. But, when I go back to Nar Shaddaa for example, then my Companion should be doing as good as they did do, back when I was actually leveling on Nar Shaddaa. In my honest opinion, I have less faith in any of my Companions to help me now, then I ever did in the 4 years of my time in SWtOR.

 

Which in turn, leads me back to, I'm not on the OP Companion boat, I'm on the make them useful again boat. There is a difference, one boat can handle the roughest of Oceans, the boat I'm trying to get on can handle the Stream.

 

The companion issue you note though is part of the design. They purposefully reset the companions. You essentially have to gear them up, this time via effection and not simply feeding them gear. Why? Because this expac is about NEW players, especially those taking advantage of level 60.

 

MMOs have a tendency to plateau in terms of subs and then die a slow death, unless they constantly expand into new markets like WoW did. One way to slow that death is to attract new players BUT it's hard because of the level thing...new players don't like feeling behind where all the "real fun" is, namely end game. Now that's where level 60 token come in BUT there are the companions. First that new guy has to somehow gear them AND he bypassed the class story so how does he build status with them? COMPANION RESET. I actually said this would be an issue of contention when they announced the concept. It was pretty clear in their description this was a reset and we would have to regrind them as well as ourselves.

 

But just look at everything. Yes to you and me, the existing player, your companion feels weaker, you are doing rehashed content BUT look at the new player. He doesn't feel his companion is weaker and he or she looks around and says "OMG look at all the missions, the FPS, the OPS, this game is positively HUGE at end game!!!!"

 

That new player is who this expac is about...not us, BW just hopes to minimize existing player loss while designing an expac around integrating the new player into the structure because EA's CFO publically called them out on having A LOT of new players joinging on the coat tails of the new movie release. Last Spring/Summer I saw this was the plan and said on these forums "dang thats a big gamble they are taking isn't it? Time will tell." Some agreed with me others called me an alarmist. The statement still applies imo and all the complaints people have about this expac are consequences of this gamble.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Deathsightofhell]

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.

 

I'm bumbin' this up, just so some elite troll can see something.

 

this in the comment section I blocked the person cause they couldn't do an simple request as make the claim video, with limiting their self with no heroic moment, and ect, and kept demanding me to go to a new server, and follow them around like a lost puppy , When You start seeing people like this, it show how much the community more all talk then show actions - heck some peopel treated this video as it was End game content, in some post, and not even look at he video , or the info of this saying it LEVEL 33, I find this sad when the community act like this

 

 

td;rl

 

stop acting like jerks and start acting like mature people for one moment and see how stupid most these convo's have become and rather then all talk of END GAME , no-mention leveling content problems which comes with Level sync - Level sync to mainly help limit the leveling content, and give reason for veteran player to interact with lower levels , heck you see social chat blowing up in the Fleet, but go to an planet and start making the same jokes on fleet, people get mad over stupid stuff, just like here. rather then turn social chat off, or just remove general chat from their main thing.

 

 

 

So All of you shut it, unless your going look at ALL THE CONTENT IN ONE BUNDLE OF JOY, AND NOT FOCUS ON THE STUFF YOU ONLY DO.

[LordArtemis]

I just wanted to make this clear. It is unlikely forum members implemented 4.0, implemented 4.0.2 and/or is going to implement the adjustment that is coming. I think the forum member blaming, or even casual vs hardcore thing is getting a bit silly at this point.

 

Though some folks certainly fight pretty hard to change opinion, far longer and far harder than I would expect is healthy, IMO, I certainly welcome discourse. But I wonder why some folks....not all...are so passionate about their own views that they would attempt to dominate an entire conversation on an issue, even if they were the lone voice of opposition.

 

There hasn't been that much of that in this thread, though there are still some die-hards in this fight.

 

I just felt it important to point out that the community, generally speaking of course, does not in practice assign or rate the merit of your ideas. Your ideas and opinions will stand on their own merits.

Edited November 23, 2015 by LordArtemis

[Nwmoon]

 

But just look at everything. Yes to you and me, the existing player, your companion feels weaker, you are doing rehashed content BUT look at the new player. He doesn't feel his companion is weaker and he or she looks around and says "OMG look at all the missions, the FPS, the OPS, this game is positively HUGE at end game!!!!"

 

That new player is who this expac is about...not us, BW just hopes to minimize existing player loss while designing an expac around integrating the new player into the structure because EA's CFO publically called them out on having A LOT of new players joinging on the coat tails of the new movie release. Last Spring/Summer I saw this was the plan and said on these forums "dang thats a big gamble they are taking isn't it? Time will tell." Some agreed with me others called me an alarmist. The statement still applies imo and all the complaints people have about this expac are consequences of this gamble.

 

I pulled these 2 paragraphs out on purpose.

 

I get that. Now, and believe me, this is not to be argumentative at all. Totally agree that the new player doesn't feel his Companion is weaker, but, as they go through the storyline of the KotFE, not pre KotFE, and they gain levels of Influence, example, if I recall, by the time I arrived at the Alliance Camp, I had about 5 Influence with each of Koth, Lana, Senya, and maybe even T7 was about 2 or 3. So, with that said, a new player has already, or should already have strengthened their Companions per the Influence levels gained, just doing the KotFE storyline. Part of the reason to have different Companion Characters with you during parts of the expansion. So each has a chance to gain a little Influence. So now, said New Player, has already raised their Companions effectiveness a little. And again, if it truly is a New Player, never played Vanilla, RotHC, or SoR, then to them, if they paid attention through the storyline, they should already start to see improvements in their Companions, small, but nonetheless, they have improved.

 

Now us, the veteran players if you will, say for the sake of this example, a Jedi Knight. Who already knows T7, doesn't have to ask if that's a Republic Model,,, We go through the expansion and arrive at the Alliance Camp. We finish up chapter IX and pick up a few weekly Heroics to start gathering Influence Caches for our Contacts. We arrive at Coruscant to quickly do Heroics, example, Trouble in Deed. We find that T7, possibly at this point, Influence Level 15 or so, just a guess, we find that he isn't able to heal us very well, as we are and always have been a bit on the squishy side, great DPS, not so great at taking damage. And yes, I know we have some mitigation to limit the damage, but let's just call an apple an apple, Sentinal is not a Tank.

 

This is where my point comes in, even though we are the elder player, T7 should be performing at least as good as he did before we got frozen in Carbonite, (keeping in mind he was DPS or Tank back then, but now he can Heal us). What I'm seeing people say on this and other Threads is, "there is little to no difference between Influence Level 20 and 50" "they gain very little over 30 levels of Influence", this is the part I'm thinking they need to fix asap, not roll back to OP Companions, but fix the Influence not doing much gain over X amount of levels.

[Ghisallo]

I pulled these 2 paragraphs out on purpose.

 

I get that. Now, and believe me, this is not to be argumentative at all. Totally agree that the new player doesn't feel his Companion is weaker, but, as they go through the storyline of the KotFE, not pre KotFE, and they gain levels of Influence, example, if I recall, by the time I arrived at the Alliance Camp, I had about 5 Influence with each of Koth, Lana, Senya, and maybe even T7 was about 2 or 3. So, with that said, a new player has already, or should already have strengthened their Companions per the Influence levels gained, just doing the KotFE storyline. Part of the reason to have different Companion Characters with you during parts of the expansion. So each has a chance to gain a little Influence. So now, said New Player, has already raised their Companions effectiveness a little. And again, if it truly is a New Player, never played Vanilla, RotHC, or SoR, then to them, if they paid attention through the storyline, they should already start to see improvements in their Companions, small, but nonetheless, they have improved.

 

Now us, the veteran players if you will, say for the sake of this example, a Jedi Knight. Who already knows T7, doesn't have to ask if that's a Republic Model,,, We go through the expansion and arrive at the Alliance Camp. We finish up chapter IX and pick up a few weekly Heroics to start gathering Influence Caches for our Contacts. We arrive at Coruscant to quickly do Heroics, example, Trouble in Deed. We find that T7, possibly at this point, Influence Level 15 or so, just a guess, we find that he isn't able to heal us very well, as we are and always have been a bit on the squishy side, great DPS, not so great at taking damage. And yes, I know we have some mitigation to limit the damage, but let's just call an apple an apple, Sentinal is not a Tank.

 

This is where my point comes in, even though we are the elder player, T7 should be performing at least as good as he did before we got frozen in Carbonite, (keeping in mind he was DPS or Tank back then, but now he can Heal us). What I'm seeing people say on this and other Threads is, "there is little to no difference between Influence Level 20 and 50" "they gain very little over 30 levels of Influence", this is the part I'm thinking they need to fix asap, not roll back to OP Companions, but fix the Influence not doing much gain over X amount of levels.

 

I agree for the purposes of the story yes. The problem is, with the dearth of actual repeatable content, they needed to add grinds. My JK has only used T& when forced by the story BUT because I am a JK I have 14 affection with him, likely because I maxed him out before the expac. Now when your max is 50 that doesn't seem like a lot BUT you can only go so far with that "free affection" if you want to maintain the grind.

 

It also prevents another argument. Lets say he started with 20 something or higher (which would likely be necessary to make him feel like he used to). This would raise the argument of "I thought you said I could use any companion! I want to use Theron but have to start with him at zero and it is so much harder so you are forcing me to use Theron."

 

There are a lot of "unintended consequences" from them trying to do a bunch of things with this expac. At least that's my take on it.

[Ghisallo]

I just wanted to make this clear. It is unlikely forum members implemented 4.0, implemented 4.0.2 and/or is going to implement the adjustment that is coming. I think the forum member blaming, or even casual vs hardcore thing is getting a bit silly at this point.

 

Though some folks certainly fight pretty hard to change opinion, far longer and far harder than I would expect is healthy, IMO, I certainly welcome discourse. But I wonder why some folks....not all...are so passionate about their own views that they would attempt to dominate an entire conversation on an issue, even if they were the lone voice of opposition.

 

There hasn't been that much of that in this thread, though there are still some die-hards in this fight.

 

I just felt it important to point out that the community, generally speaking of course, does not in practice assign or rate the merit of your ideas. Your ideas and opinions will stand on their own merits.

 

I agree entirely, at least when I raise the issue of other play styles it is to create context. Solo players favor X, Y and Z, Group Players A,B, and C... BW appears to have done these things to try and appeal to X, Z, B and C.

 

Devs in a theme park game hae a hard time. It's like herding cats. They can't make one particular group genuinely happy because that means, usually pissing off another group. They thus make changes where everyone is, basically annoyed that they did not get everything they wanted. Annoyed players still usually play and thus ay. Pissed off players rarely play and thus don't pay.

[Bothan]

My feedback about companion strength is, "YOU chose to make companions fun with the release of 4.0. Companion strength wasn't a hack or exploit, it was what YOU decided it should be."

 

How do you come back a month later and say companions are significantly stronger than you intended them to be when they were only as powerful as you decided to make them?

 

Lack of testing, and instead just looking at metrics and hyperbolic user feedback. I've worked in game studios where the general sentiment was, "Let the players test; we can always change it later." Still, even at work, I tend to playtest the **** out of games I'm working on, so that I understand how a user interacts with the games regardless of what the stats have to say.

[Nwmoon]

I'm bumbin' this up, just so some elite troll can see something.

 

this in the comment section I blocked the person cause they couldn't do an simple request as make the claim video, with limiting their self with no heroic moment, and ect, and kept demanding me to go to a new server, and follow them around like a lost puppy , When You start seeing people like this, it show how much the community more all talk then show actions - heck some peopel treated this video as it was End game content, in some post, and not even look at he video , or the info of this saying it LEVEL 33, I find this sad when the community act like this

 

 

td;rl

 

stop acting like jerks and start acting like mature people for one moment and see how stupid most these convo's have become and rather then all talk of END GAME , no-mention leveling content problems which comes with Level sync - Level sync to mainly help limit the leveling content, and give reason for veteran player to interact with lower levels , heck you see social chat blowing up in the Fleet, but go to an planet and start making the same jokes on fleet, people get mad over stupid stuff, just like here. rather then turn social chat off, or just remove general chat from their main thing.

 

 

 

So All of you shut it, unless your going look at ALL THE CONTENT IN ONE BUNDLE OF JOY, AND NOT FOCUS ON THE STUFF YOU ONLY DO.

 

Apologies for not really knowing where you're going with this, but the Video you quoted and what was written in the quoted Video area, is where my confusion comes in. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like a complaint about getting the "Legendary Player" gold icon around your characters pic in game. The only way to get that is, to level up one of each character from each class. Not forced, and it doesn't do anything buff wise, it's just telling everyone, you have raised one of each class from 1 to 50, or better put, completed each of the classes Core Class Stories, again not forced on you, just a decoration of sorts.

 

Again, apologies if I'm just not reading it right.

[Ghisallo]

My feedback about companion strength is, "YOU chose to make companions fun with the release of 4.0. Companion strength wasn't a hack or exploit, it was what YOU decided it should be."

 

How do you come back a month later and say companions are significantly stronger than you intended them to be when they were only as powerful as you decided to make them?

 

Lack of testing. Here is the thing... when your boss says "launch by date X" you worry about game breaking bugs before you worry about balance. We had a host of bugs at launch, some still exist so that w on the back burner. However they have a "time to complete" metric (for lack of a better term) that they try to control via a grind. Now The story was supposed to be easy so the issue of companion power was not obvious. However if you look at the difficulty breakdown on the OP then you see there was an issue HOWEVER, that is not going to be apparent until a critical number of players get there.

 

I am fairly certain they said "HOLY CRAP people are killing the content WAY to fast, it's 2012 all over again!!!" I mean serious, my heal companion was so strong they could kill the stuff for me with their basic attack. I tested this and at the time she was only affection 12. SO in panic mode they slam on the emergency brake.

 

never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Or in this case piss poor testing.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Nwmoon]

Lack of testing. Here is the thing... when your boss says "launch by date X" you worry about game breaking bugs before you worry about balance. We had a host of bugs at launch, some still exist so that w on the back burner. However they have a "time to complete" metric (for lack of a better term) that they try to control via a grind. Now The story was supposed to be easy so the issue of companion power was not obvious. However if you look at the difficulty breakdown on the OP then you see there was an issue HOWEVER, that is not going to be apparent until a critical number of players get there.

 

I am fairly certain they said "HOLY CRAP people are killing the content WAY to fast, it's 2012 all over again!!!" I mean serious, my heal companion was so strong they could kill the stuff for me with their basic attack. I tested this and at the time she was only affection 12. SO in panic mode they slam on the emergency brake.

 

never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Or in this case piss poor testing.

 

I'm jumping between threads reading, don't know why , anyway, I just read the Holy Crap people are killing the content to fast part,,,

 

Another one of my things, nothing major, but, stretched over 3 accounts/subs, I literally have over 20 level 60's to 65's, over 15 level 55's waiting to go to Rishi and Yavin 4 before going to KotFE. and probably another 20 or more under 55's waiting to be waiting

 

Point is, if they worry about content being killed to quickly, tell them to not worry at all, I have plenty to do, the faster I can get one to 65 and going, means I can jump on another, rinse and repeat

 

Now my daughter helps me when she can, but even still, the 2 of us can't level them all that fast, like say, before the next chapter comes out, not possible.

[Ghisallo]

I'm jumping between threads reading, don't know why , anyway, I just read the Holy Crap people are killing the content to fast part,,,

 

Another one of my things, nothing major, but, stretched over 3 accounts/subs, I literally have over 20 level 60's to 65's, over 15 level 55's waiting to go to Rishi and Yavin 4 before going to KotFE. and probably another 20 or more under 55's waiting to be waiting

 

Point is, if they worry about content being killed to quickly, tell them to not worry at all, I have plenty to do, the faster I can get one to 65 and going, means I can jump on another, rinse and repeat

 

Now my daughter helps me when she can, but even still, the 2 of us can't level them all that fast, like say, before the next chapter comes out, not possible.

 

But you appear, in my experience to be a raity. First people rarely have as many characters as that (as I am sure you know ) Second, there were people in the fist thread that simply announced the nerf saying that the only thing that kept them doing the grind across multiple characters was "how easy it was" but also admitted that they knew it would get old fast across those same characters. basically their argument was "Yeah I will probably unsub by January out of complete and utter boredom but isn't that better than me unsubbing right this minute?"

 

BW really screwed up and the more I look at it the more I think releasing the companions in their current state put them in a damned if they do, damned if they don't scenario. The only difference is one form of damnination hits quick like a bullet, the other is a slow painful torture over the next couple months. Cheery thinking I have isn't it

[Lyriel]

I realize I am coming to contribute late, but I am one of those casual players who do other things like work, have social commitments, and so forth. My playtime comes in chunks of a few hours here and there, with occasional weekend binges. I'm either part of the largest segment of the player base, or ruining the game, depending on whose post I read - but I figure as far as BioWare is concerned, I'm about $12/month.

 

Luckily, I read the forums before the patch hit so I had an inkling of what was coming and that I'd want to be able to make a comparison of before and after (for myself, even if BioWare never sought any feedback).

 

So, I ran the Belsavis heroics on my Bounty Hunter (Power Tech) both before and after. She's level 65, in a mix of mostly 208 with a few slots still 192. Hasn't started KotFE yet. All companions at 10 influence. Legacy level 50, datacron master. Used ranged companions (Gault and Blizz) in both DPS and Heal mode - even when my PT is in DPS mode herself, she's never used a companion in tank mode - it's just too slow, and it's not like the PT doesn't have a lot of inherent survivability.

 

Before 4.0.2, she could solo those heroics with varying degrees of ease, with the variation directly proportional to the number of mobs in the pull. Companion in DPS was useful, but the large pulls left both character and companion on the low end of HPs using all skills (though I didn't use Heroic Moment except on champ bosses). I'd not used a healing companion for a long time, preferring DPS to speed things up, but I wanted to see what the fuss was about them. When I switched to one for the Belsavis heroics, I understood. Holy cow, did that trivialize things! I didn't need to pay nearly as much attention, didn't ever feel threatened... An adjustment was pretty obviously needed.

 

I finally had a chance to take her back to the Belsavis heroics tonight. The change was very noticeable, to put it mildly. There was a lot more near-death, and in a couple of them I did die a few times (Old Enemies, Freeing the Fallen) - one of them, I simply decided to quit on rather than try to finish it at this point (Lights Out). This was with both DPS and Heal mode companions. The difference seemed to fall hardest on the heroics that were level 50 before the patch (can't remember if any of them were Heroic 4 or not, but I didn't think they were). The others were doable without dying, but were definitely a lot slower and required a lot more care. In none of them was I even remotely tempted to try for the bonuses any more - just finishing the mission was slog enough. If this is BioWare's idea of 'medium' then I can just give up ever doing the Star Fortress heroics in this lifetime.

 

I'm hardly a MMORPG noob, and have played this game since launch. When I was younger and had time, I did my share of end game raiding in EQ (72 man 6 hour raids FTW... not). I've done raids here, too, when my guild was populous enough to run them (and the occasional PUG Op since then). I'm not super-skilled, but I'm competent. Are the heroics *possible* post 4.0.2? For me, with the advantages I have based on gear, legacy, and influence, mostly yes. But 'possible' should not be the bar for something labeled 'medium' difficulty and de facto required for some content. If 'fun' isn't the appropriate bar (and I can see the arguments on both sides of that), I'd settle for 'not so tedious that I'd rather be at the dentist.' I feel bad for the players who do not have the advantages even I have, because I'm frustrated enough to seriously question whether or not even starting the new content is worth it to me.

[sjscorpiomark]

Apologies this got a lot longer than I thought when I started writing it.

 

All games have a bell curve of how fast content is consumed, the developer lays out their roadmap and determines how long till the next release and tries to balance the game so the top of the bell curve intersects that timeline. What many believe happened was the top of the bell curve was consuming the content quicker than designed (at least that is how i read Erik's posts). Resulting in BW deciding not to make it 'more challenging' per-se but to stretch out the grind so the bell curve/timeline get back in line. This is totally up to BW no complaining from either side on the forums.

 

I think what BW might have missed is many or most people have multiple characters they want to get through the new content (or for new players just the 1-65 experience on their stable of characters). They see xx number of characters done with the content (the left side of the curve) and say oh no we need to slow people down quick. the result is the hammer known as 4.0.2. Completely reminds me of WoW and how after every expansion after BC there were people who leveled to the new maximum level within 24-36 hours (mostly to try to get realm/world first achievements) BUT the vast majority of players took weeks/months to reach the new cap. The people who were chewing through the content on the left side of the curve caused BW to panic, not realizing I think, that they were the 'rushers' not the average players.

 

Now BW may have taken into account cancelled subs/the storm over the nerf but I think they also had time to see that even with the admittedly OP 4.0 companions (they needed a 25-30% nerf) it was not going to be the norm to finish the new content in a week for most players, the fear of people getting to 65, maxing their alliance, and leaving really was already pretty low. But the nerf did adversely effect the 'easymode' enjoying players, yes I am one of those and have stated it before in other posts, I liked the 4.0 companions even though they were a bit OP.

 

It is my opinion that those who rushed through the new content and were complaining about nothing to do were part but not the main reason for the nerf to slow things down (metrics according to Erik was the main reason). I understand there were no new FP/OPs to satiate those who wanted shiny new end-game content and I genuinely sympathize but BW decided to have a grind to hold people over till the next chapter. It was not the people who liked to steamroll mobs as a result of the grind time sink.

 

Anyway we will hear tomorrow what BW's plan is and hopefully a balance can be reached to satisfy the majority of the user base because there will always be extremists on both ends that are not happy unless it's all their way.

[Nwmoon]

But you appear, in my experience to be a raity. First people rarely have as many characters as that (as I am sure you know ) Second, there were people in the fist thread that simply announced the nerf saying that the only thing that kept them doing the grind across multiple characters was "how easy it was" but also admitted that they knew it would get old fast across those same characters. basically their argument was "Yeah I will probably unsub by January out of complete and utter boredom but isn't that better than me unsubbing right this minute?"

 

BW really screwed up and the more I look at it the more I think releasing the companions in their current state put them in a damned if they do, damned if they don't scenario. The only difference is one form of damnination hits quick like a bullet, the other is a slow painful torture over the next couple months. Cheery thinking I have isn't it

 

Yeah, I have too many, but some are on other servers, some are split between the accounts, and so on. Probably the first thing to start it was, same as other games, getting a character for each Crew Skill, so there's the start of multiple characters.

 

Next, when bored, or out of new things to do, I played a game within the game, I raised one of each class from 1 to 55 when 55 was max level, some were 1 to 60. My goal was, not that there was an achievement for it, but to bring them from 1 to max level without a single defeat. I guess it just gave me a goal to shoot for, and though nobody else would ever know, I know, I did it. Every class, no defeats. I think WoW had "The Undying" title or Achievement for it.

 

Anyway, it kept me occupied, and that's part of why, so many characters

[Ghisallo]

Okay while I know changes are already inc I HONESTLY think it is not so much because of the companion issues BUT because of a failure to A) disclose the OP in advance and B) the lag issue created by the corpses (with a couple of missions an exception.

 

A. Tonight I finally did the H2 SF with 10 in all 4 alliance factions. Those abilities made every fight, including the ambush and core 3 almost trivial. That damn auto turrent does enough damage that it ripped aggro off of my 216 geared JK on the last boss fight and the heal made me say "okay I can be stupid and win. If this tiered concept was revealed in advance rather than an assumption made players would just "understand" I think we would have half th problem.

 

B. I was on Balmorra. I had Colicoids hiding in piles of corpses because over 40 were piled up (yes I counted). I had mobs disappear and reaper as I changed my perspective thus changing the number of corpses I viewed. I was on my speeder and saw 3 corpses, got blown off and saw 30... THEN the mobs that blew me off my speeder rendered and I was already at 50% health. To make matters worse the ability lag was atrocious and this likely is also experienced by the companions, exacerbating their AI issues.

 

Now this does not change that people hate being nerfed....BUT if people knew in advance what steps BW expected people to go through (H2 SF) and we did not have basic technical issues making matters completely ridiculous (the corpse=lag=rendering issues) I think this whole debacle would have been far more manageable.

[KeiraHawke]

Dear Bioware. I have a simple question. Couldn't you just give us an option to buff our companions to the level they were before 4.02 patch? When x12 xp started, you gave subscribers a way to remove it with an item from fleet vendor - maybe something similar would work in this situation? That way both Pro-Nerf and Pro-OP factions would be happy, I think.

 

If someone mention this earlier, I'm sorry, but with 196 pages it's really hard to read everything.

Edited October 2, 2016 by KeiraHawke

[LordArtemis]

I have to admit, this has been an interesting read. Quite a bit of good theorycrafting on both sides of the issue, some interesting points were raised.

 

I feel one thing is for certain. There is a seeming disconnect between the players and the devs, and I think this needs to be remedied.

[Ghisallo]

I have to admit, this has been an interesting read. Quite a bit of good theorycrafting on both sides of the issue, some interesting points were raised.

 

I feel one thing is for certain. There is a seeming disconnect between the players and the devs, and I think this needs to be remedied.

 

I agree that there is a disconnect...BUT I would like to think, since many of the people on both sides have been here for than a year, that if the devs would simply articulate their vision in a transparent manner, half the problems would go away. Instead they save the transparency for AFTERit has hit the fan. People are angry. From this very thread it's clear some were so angry they did not even read the OP and see what their vision was because their responses didn't touch on a single part of it.

 

I truly believe the reason for much of the angst is that players made assumptions over "marketing" statements and then ignored "content" statements over the last 8 months. If they would have known the true vision while not blissfully happy they would, likely, have been content. This would have also prevented people leaving who I know left for the same reason leading up to the expac.

 

Instead they made the seemingly contradictory statements and now we have the near debacle we are faced with.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Voblat]

I have to admit, this has been an interesting read. Quite a bit of good theorycrafting on both sides of the issue, some interesting points were raised.

 

I feel one thing is for certain. There is a seeming disconnect between the players and the devs, and I think this needs to be remedied.

 

There is disconnect between the devs and the game they create.

 

They want the story to be easy, fair enough. Then they add heroic star fortress to the story. Which they want to be 'hard'.

 

They need to at least be consistent. Companion AI is broken anyway, so I am unsure how they think their 'metrics' stack up no matter which way you sway on the issue, but if they want people to follow the story and have solo challenges in the game that is fine. What they shouldn't do is mix the two together. Which is where they are right now.

 

If the story is easy all through, then the story (remember, this is not player choice, the game directs them this way) straight into heroic missions at the star fortress and on planets (and since the changes the higher level planets take far too long for the reward) then it will cause problems.

 

Solo star fortress should be the unlock for the story quests.

[DarthDymond]

There is disconnect between the devs and the game they create.

 

They want the story to be easy, fair enough. Then they add heroic star fortress to the story. Which they want to be 'hard'.

 

They need to at least be consistent.

How is having a difficulty curve inconsistent? It's kind of a core principle of game design.

 

As people play a game, they tend to get better at the game. The difficulty of the game should increase relative to the anticipated increase in skill, so that the player remains engaged throughout.

 

Leveling Story & KotFE Story [Easy] -> Heroic Missions & Reg Star Fortress [Medium] -> Heroic Star Fortress [Hard]

 

is the same basic flow as you'd see in an old-school platformer game:

 

Stages 1-3 [Easy] -> Stages 4-6 [Medium] -> Stages 7 & 8 [Hard]

Edited November 23, 2015 by DarthDymond

[Voblat]

How is having a difficulty curve inconsistent? It's kind of a core principle of game design.

 

As people play a game, they tend to get better at the game. The difficulty of the game should increase relative to the anticipated increase in skill, so that the player remains engaged throughout.

 

Because there is no curve.

 

Their own idea shows story to be the easiest part, and hard mode Sf the hardest solo content in the game.

 

As designed, the game goes from one straight to the other. It is simply bad design. Big healing companions simply covered it up. Just like they covered up the poor AI that they have now that seems them stop healing or attacking or aggroing an entire instance at once, and that level sync doesnt work right in many ways, for instance it overides buffs given for specific missions (satille's on the revan weekly for instance).

[Chazcon]

I can speak for my guild as well as myself when I say, regarding Challenge Level, change all Low to Medium and all Medium to Hard..

 

Also I think there is an across the board break on what Bioware, the average casual player, and the average hardcore player thinks of as Low Medium and Hard.

 

I would characterize our guild as hardcore players, but we do not raid, raiding we feel is nothing but memorization of a script and does not require a high skill level.This is not the challenge we're looking for, to paraphrase a famous Star Wars line.

 

What we enjoy is 2- or 3- manning content designed for a larger group ('short-manning'). We have played this way in all MMO's for many years. Our guild has been together for 17 years believe it or not. After that much play time, we have become a cohesive, skilled team and overcoming a tough challenge is what we play for.

 

One thing that hurts our playstyle are arbitrary gating or lockout mechanics in quests, for example there is a quest on Section X that requires 4 players at the very end to all perform an action to finish the quest. We have fought through this and killed the last boss with 2 people, on level, and then we stopped by an arbitrary mechanic. We say, don't negate our skill and our ability to short-man, if we can beat it through teamwork and being adaptable, let us beat it, take all gating requirements out of content.

 

We are a very small and unique part of your player base and as such have no voice really. What affects us negatively the most is what we perceive of the general 'dumbing-down' of an MMO game in the years following it's launch, or in other words the changes to the game to make it easier for casual players.

 

We understand casual players are the majority of the player base and generate the majority of your revenue stream (the WoW model, well proven). We understand that small segments of the player base like our guild, are only hanging onto the tiger's tail and have to live with changes that are made for your larger segments.