Companion Change Feedback

[Severitus]

Your level: Triqz, Harbinger, 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 208, roughly...some gear is 216, might even have a 220, but lightsabers are in the 190 range

Discipline: Annihilation Marauder

Companion: Lana Beniko

Companion role: Healing

Companion Influence level: 44

Which Mission: All weekly heroic missions (2+)

Your personal experience while playing this content: I'm not really saying it's hard. But, it has become way too tedious and way more grindy. Before 4.0.2, I could fly through almost all of these (and have fun doing it, taking on tons of mobs at once, etc). Now, it's just a pain to slog through. I understand it's an MMO and that SOME grind is required...but, I should not have to do HM FPs or OP levels of effort on what is essentially the basic grind. This type of content should really require a minimal level of effort. Add to that, the companion is next to useless while doing these now. Set the comp as damage, they barely do any before they die. Set the comp to heals, they barely give you any healing before they take so much damage that they begin healing themselves just before they die, followed quickly by yourself. Set them as tank...a mob sneezes on them and they're gone. Most of the threads I've seen where a player says the comps are fine are all in tank specs. I should not have to change my players spec simply to churn through a basic level of content. I'm not even trying to get through the harder content solo. These weekly heroic missions should NOT require CC, should NOT require planning every pull, should NOT require waiting between every pull to channel hatred (or whatever your personal heal spell is), should NOT require waiting until all your CDs are done...you get where I'm going with this. With the companion change, you made a relatively easy paced grind in a long, time-consuming, super-grind for your average player. It's not even close to fun for me, and I've unsubbed because of it.

 

Also wanted to add, this companion nerf wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't ALSO coupled with the level sync. One or the other really needs to go.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Severitus
Added clarifying information

[DakhathKilrathi]

1. Store bought companions are no different then standard companions (why buy comps off the store?)

 

Treek, at least, has unique abilities that put her above the other healer role companions for now. But you have to deal with her spamming chat and repeating the same line every two to six seconds. Literally.

[Neoforcer]

but fights take annoying long and the companion now feels pretty useless to me most of the time with almost influence 30...

i already expected when i heard people cry for a companion nerf, that the nerf , if it would come, would cause the opposite cries, because it wouldn't be a reasonable change.

 

Only use they have now is crafting

[Xenooo]

what everyone needs to do is unsub and not log in to the game send a message to bioware

 

A lot of people probably have including myself. That's probably the only reason we got this thread from Eric.

[Neoforcer]

So keep stalling BW so we can all go find a new game to sub to that is not EA or BW....

[Amodin]

You sheep posting your statistics in this forum post astound me.

 

This is Bioware asking for feedback about their own game. You know, the game where they have full access to the hard numbers, who can see for themselves exactly how performance is going, which was completely downhill.

 

Welcome to the forum post that is snow-blowing propaganda to make the illusion look like Eric, and Bioware, appear to give you what you are looking for (Hope and Change) and will never give back.

 

Misdirection folks. Read about it.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

As it should be for us who dont have time playing it regulary!

If you want to go hard mode, play free to play

 

LOLOLOL. So you're saying you want the game to literally be P2W. At least your honest I guess....

[lorefultv]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 208

Discipline: Defense (Jedi Guardian / Defense)

Companion: T7

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 20

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): Solo, H2+ and Star Fortress

Your personal experience while playing this content: I have a lot of experience playing this character. It has been my main since launch - Day 1. I have tanked everything from 4-man Flashpoints to Ops. Have not grouped on this character since 4.0. Healing from companions since 4.0 is down, WAY down, by more than 75%. But you know this. I find H2s are very difficult. Everything above an H2+ is damn near impossible. Before 4.0 with Doc fully geared and healing, I was tough to take down. I rarely died. I know how to pull out survivability with this character. After the 4.0 update, I never died. After the 4.0.2 Update, I die more than I did pre-4.0. The nerf bat was swung and hit much too hard.

 

Your level: 50

Roughly Average Item Rating: Good Question (level 48-ish mods?)

Discipline: DPS (Jedi Sentinel / Combat)

Companion: T7 / Kira

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 15 on Kira, 12 on T7

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): Grouping Story Mode and H2+.

Your personal experience while playing this content: I started this character a few weeks ago, right after the 4.0 update. I primarily solo and team up with a friend who plays a Smuggler (Gunslinger) they typically use the Wookiee as a tank or DPS while I have T7 or Kira on heals. We mostly play story content and daily heroic 2+ missions. We ran a test of Alderaan H2's last night, healing was ridiculously low from T7, we had to use pots often. Their Wookiee was not holding aggro very well. I had to mini-tank to keep us alive -- on a Sentinel! Particularly in the Kwillik caves. While we never died (both experienced players), I saw 10% health often. The battles were very tough at times and I would imagine that less experienced players would have wiped multiple times. Saw many other players soloing and dying.

 

Advice (For What It's Worth): Please use the Test Server for these kinds of changes. And offer subscribers incentives to use the Test Servers and to provide feedback: An exclusive mount for time spent, an exclusive outfit, etc. SOMETHING for our time. You have the infrastructure to stop this crap from ever happening again. USE IT!

Edited November 19, 2015 by aharoncagle
Clarification

[Infernixx]

So keep stalling BW so we can all go find a new game to sub to that is not EA or BW....

 

I highly recommend Fallout 4.

[Achia]

Hi guy's, from FRANCE. Please excuse my bad english.

 

My Characters:

 

-Soldier Vanguard 65 (213 ilvl)

-Sniper 65 (221 ilvl)

-Sorcerer dps 65 (208 ilvl)

-Warrior Tank (214 ilvl)

 

Compagnion:

 

-all of them

 

Compagion Role:

 

-all role used.

 

Influance Level:

 

Scorpion 32

Jaesa Willsam 31

HK-51 28

etc...

 

Mission or Forteress:

 

I cant solo Forteress anymore. I can't do my mission without having a heal after each monster pack (even with my compagnion in healing role)

 

Experience:

 

When I subscribe to a game, I want to have some fun, since this nerf: No way, no more fun. And, a hudge waste of time.

 

 

I'll fix my subscribe, until compagnion get fixed to.

[TheSithLordLuni]

LOLOLOL. So you're saying you want the game to literally be P2W. At least your honest I guess....

 

Not pay to win... pay to go through levels quicker! And yes I am as honest as I can be (and poor)

[swtorsaber]

Level: 65

Item Rating: 208

Discipline: Immortal

Companion: Pierce

Companion role: DPS

Companion Influence level: 35

Mission: Heroic 2

Personal Experience:

 

I've been running every heroic mission that awards military gear since the launch of Knights of the Fallen Empire on several characters. Even with this most recent change to companions, each mission (not including waiting for enemies or clickable items to spawn) takes between 3-5 minutes to complete. I've only found the need to stop to recover health a few times per mission as the typical packs of enemies (gold, silver, silver) can be cleared before the 15 second cooldown on force charge is finished. If this change to companions was made in secret I honestly don't think I would have even noticed.

 

During the last couple of days people in general chat have been asking for help with heroics since their companions are "no longer useful," while grouping with these players I notice that they tend to use un-optimized playstyles. Example: walking up to enemies and using assault to build rage rather than jumping in with force charge, having a shield while in rage spec, casting chain lighting, etc.

 

Thank you for reading, I hope it helps.

[Pairaka]

Here's my feedback, Eric.

 

I was sold a pack of lies. You guys advertised a casual experience with KotFE expansion. It's the reason I resubbed.

 

This patch is the reason I unsubbed.

 

If a casual gaming experience was the mission statement handed down from your superiors, you've just failed them and you're now doing the opposite. The patch has made wading through packs of trash on the pre-lvl-60 game longer than I've ever experienced before, because now my companions suck, I can't meaningfully outlevel the content, and I can't gear up my companions either. There is nothing I can do but waste countless hours or no longer play, and I'm going to chose the latter in that scenario.

 

All of these people fine with this horrible, worst patch ever, I invite them to play on a low level non-tank toon in green gear and get back to me. I'm assuming due to the level cap and level floor, you're intending that new players be able to do a lot of this content. It's completely and utterly broken now, from FPs on to Heroics.

 

I hope you understand what a detrimental impact this patch has had on a huge number of your casual subscribers and take a look at the number of cancellations this has caused. If you guys were supposed to make the pre-60 game more casual, you succeeded with 4.0, and took back every victory with this patch, making it the worst grind ever. So, please revert.

 

It's obscenely terrible.

 

This in a nutshell. I came back to playing regularly with 4.0 and was having fun. I've got 3 characters through KOTFE, and another about halfway through it. I could do the things I wanted solo and go my merry way. I've logged more hours since 4.0 dropped than I have in the past three years.

 

However, now it's not that it's *hard* per se, it's just... ugh. UGH. Plain and simple. Previous to 4.0, I could get my comps gear and they'd do fine. I never had a problem that wasn't my own fault for either pulling too many mobs, doing something stupid, or a result of a crappy connection. Healers could keep me healed; dps would down things while I healed them. (I do not play tanks nor do I like to use tanky comps).

 

To provide the info that was requested for this thread, here we go:

 

65 Corruption Sorc, 216 gear, 1 piece of radiant / 65 Vengence Jugg, mostly 208, one or two 216

Comps: Koth influence 25 or so, DPS, Pierce as tank / Koth, Lana, T-7... Just couldn't find one that healed well enough, heals

Sorc: regular SF is fine. I had to use Pierce as a tank, though; DPS just gets smashed and with my connection, I can't heal fast enough. This is using CCs and such. Using a tank comp was slow because they do almost no damage and I had to heal and DPS to keep the fights from becoming too long. Which happened anyway. Tried Heroic SF, got to the final stage and couldn't get past the second room (i'm on satellite and I have a serious lag, and spent the whole fight getting yanked around (damn mobs won't *move*)). Tank doesn't generate enough agro to keep them off of me, and with everything that's going on... I probably could have done it, but then I still had another room and the exarch to fight. And I decided it wasn't worth it.

 

I went and got Qyzen on my Sorc yesterday by farming the champs. Those posed no problem with a DPS companion (Koth, DPS, 24).

 

My jugg on the other hand... I have been forced to learn a few things on her. But, it's the same thing as above. It's just gotten tedious. What once used to be fun is now just a chore. A couple of the heroics on Belsavis are brutal; in fact after I died, I did the corpse run past the mobs to the final stage and fought and killed the jedi that way. I wasn't breezing through these things before, but at least I had a chance.

 

Healer comps just stop healing. I think part of this is that they're trying to dps as well. I hate Lana because she seems to spend more time trying to hit the mobs than she does healing me. Koth probably does the same when I have him heal...

 

As mentioned in the quoted post, previously I could do something about my companions. I could get them better gear. At one time, on my sorc, Andronikos had better gear than I did. He'd kill 'em and I'd keep him alive. It worked. It was fun. I enjoyed that system.

 

This is probably the end for me. I've canceled my sub.

[GhostRaven]

#SWTORCompanionLivesMatter

 

Dont hate

[DamienRay]

I just read the OP. HAD you told me this PRIOR to me subbing, I would have turned away in a heartbeat. Luckily I've only subbed thru Feb 2016. You are most definitely entitled to stand by your vision for the game. But sometimes, to stay in business, you have to grit your teeth and try to make the customer happy. A happy customer is a spending customer. Those Cartel Coins won't buy themselves.

[Neoforcer]

Hell i just did a experiment lana can not out heal 2 61 none silver elites attacking here she dies in 10s help me i dieing. That's 2 npc i can stand all day and let whale on me for a week and not die.

[parchedgoose]

A lot of people probably have including myself. That's probably the only reason we got this thread from Eric.

 

I wonder if they realize what they have done....potential new players usually read the forums before joining a game and if I was a new potential and read all that was going on here and how broken it is I would quietly slip away and never look back.....(turns off lights in strongholds and heads off to the beach)

[Damask_Rose]

Your level Started at 16, ended at 21

Roughly Average Item Rating Started at 46 average ended at 62 average

Discipline Telekinetic Sage

Companion Qyzen

Companion role Mostly healing

Companion Influence level Started at 9, ended at 12

Which Mission Tython, Coruscant, Taris H2s

Your personal experience while playing this content

 

Was overleveled for Tython and Coruscant - Those were the easiest of easy.

Taris was a big jump in difficulty. Most encounters hit the medium target. Groups of strongs were fairly easy. Single champions were spot on medium. Qyzen's healing couldn't keep up with the champions' damage requiring me to off heal. Groups of 4 elite or a champion with multiple strongs were hard and resulted in death if I didn't use heroic moment even though I was using my cc, bubble and off-heals.

 

For these encounters I felt like a small healing increase would be warranted or a reduction of the mob density in two or three encounters. Personally, I'd rather see the mod density dropped since the rest of the Taris H2s felt right on target.

[Jeweledleah]

I will do some testing later today on a fresh lvl 60 created on a server that I don't have a full legacy on, but with my maxed out legacy all datacrons unlocked, Lana at 26 influence lightning sorc in average of 216 gear with lvl 60 relics,220 offhand and 208 hilt (no set bonuses, vendor gear only) mostly augmented with mix of lvl 60 and 65 purple augments (at least augment slots upgraded to newest version) - story mode fortresses feel almost the way HM fortresses felt prior to the patch (that is WITH all alliance buffs).

 

planetary heroics take longer, mainly because I have to stop and recharge after every pull, but killing goes longer as well, in part becasue I now have to spend a third of my time self healing because Lana can no longer keep up with it. her damage is also lower (and it was already pretty low in heal spec)

 

HM fortress including trash pulls (especially the ones that have zakul knights) feels like trying to solo lvl 55 hardmode BOSSES at lvl 60 with companion I didn't fully mod/augment out. aka - its sorta kinda doable, but for content that is supposedly something you farm - its way too time consuming and tedious.

 

in terms of player skill - I'm average. better at healing then dps/tanking, (I'd say I'm slightly above average healer, but not super amazing like some of the progression healers I know), but generally passable. I do know where my stun, interrupt and cc buttons are and I don't stand in bad - I move out of it.

 

I will come back in the evening to post my findings about the difficulty feel of H2 on characters hat don't have benefit of all the legacy buffs. the test will be done on at level character on Dromuund Kaas and Balmora, as well as fresh lvl 60 on Makeb and possibly Voss. for the purpose of at least somewhat imitating experience of a newer player.

 

P.S. prior to 4.0 in fact prior to 3.0 back when i didn't have all classes/companions finished with human presence buff unlocked in legacy (but only few character's worth of companion added presence) and companion i was able to solo every at the time available H2 on capitol planet and Balmora/Taris. commendation gear for both me and companion. by the time I would get to Tatooine, it was getting harder, but still possible as part of normal leveling process (aka NOT over-leveling it). so. my expectation is that it should still be possible and have a similar difficulty feel.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Jeweledleah

[lKile]

Well, for me, the problem with companions comes with the level sync.

 

First of all, I have to say that I'm agree with level sync and also with the companion debuff. Before this patch, game was extremly easy. Comps should NEVER stand over a player in terms of numbers, so debuff was required. Pre 4.0, Heroics were supposed to be hard, and I remember you needed to be quite overleveled to complete the Heroic without help, but you just had to complete it once or twice because the loot wasnt necessary at all. It was just an epic quest in the planet.

 

When 4.0 came out, you changed the quest system, added level sync... and Heroics changed. Amazing stories like Chamber of Speech that were told back on 2012 in Tython nowadays are forgotten, because today, Chamber of Speech is for grinding KoTFE stuff, and no questgiver to introduce you to the quest. With companion overpowered this was a complete grinding from us. People THINK that Heroics are the new dailies. Dailies with KoTFE rewards. HEROICS ARE NOT DAILIES FOR GRINDING, COMPANIONS AREN'T GODS, AND ENDGAME CONTENT SHOULD NOT BE CASUAL. Originally Heroics were supposed to be hard, AND STORY CONTENT, NOT GRINDING, and maybe you should increase A LITTLE BIT healing, just maybe, but the companion nerf is good for me.

 

If a game is too easy, it will get boring as the time passes (Assassin's Creed), and hardcore players NEED difficult content. Back in 2012-2014 you needed some skill for soloing Heroics, seems fine for me that stays in the same way with these companion nerf.

[publicenemies]

This is my biggest issue as well. I will NEVER buy anything off the cartel market ever again or play this bs till they make hk 51 and treek unique and what they were. Why sell comps on the store if there the same as all the rest?

 

I am not posting a testing here.. i want to know, if you BW guys are going to make Treek and HK special again. I personally would NEVER have invested this many cartel coins in this ewok, the way that stupid ewok is now. Just like all others. I feel betrayed, i have spend money and Cartel coins to get the special healing+ tanking companion and if you aren't going to return those special features back to her, i think the leats you COULD do is: give players who got Treek their cartel coins back.. if they unlocked her with those and for collection.. or the money if they bought her.

Period. I also highly dislike the companion nerf.. not because i would die often.. which isn't the case for the most,in most that i do, then again i most of the time have accompany because i hate doing stuff solo (bores me), but fights take annoying long and the companion now feels pretty useless to me most of the time with almost influence 30...

i already expected when i heard people cry for a companion nerf, that the nerf , if it would come, would cause the opposite cries, because it wouldn't be a reasonable change.

 

GIVE ME TREEK HOW SHE USED TO BE OR GIVE ME BACK MY INVESTED CARTEL COINS, BECAUSE I WOULDNT HAVE SPENT THOSE FOR A STUPID EWOK COMPANION THAT'S LIKE ALL OTHERS. I hate Ewoks.. my one and only reason to get her was her special ability setup.

[Skywalkher]

I have multiple level 65 toons, four of which have at least one companion at Influence 50. I am a founder with every legacy perk you can get. On my jugg, with Lana at 50 influence, presence went down to 3678. Lana's HP went from nearly 110k hp down to just over 84k hp. I tried doing HM SF and the grind just seemed to take twice as long. The Challenge Factor increased but it just got boring with each fight just taking way too long.

 

I grinded a ton of H2+ heroics to build the influence of the 4 Alliance peeps. I maxed them out about 10 days ago and those heroic grinds drove me nuts. They took way too long in their current state pre patch. This morning, I tried to grind out some heroics on Voss and OMG, I just gave up. It just takes forever to kill the trash.

 

I honestly don't get the nerf and I have been around since pre launch. I can't even imagine what the grind is like for people that don't have the legacy perks. I thought the goal was to make the game more approachable for the casual gamer? It looks like this patch went totally against that goal.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Skywalkher

[SGMRock]

Please give us your feedback, and we simply ask you to be as constructive as possible. Include information such as:

Your level

Roughly Average Item Rating

Discipline

Companion

Companion role

Companion Influence level

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

Your personal experience while playing this content

If you have a video or other related content to go with your feedback, feel free to link that as well as it will allow us the best insight into your experiences.

 

Uhhmmmmm......... NO. BIOWARE should be the one doing the beta testing, not me, the formally paying customer.

 

But I will provide a few metrics for you.

WAS I having more fun with 4.0 than I had in-game than at any point in the past 3 years? YES

Am I having LESS fun since 4.0.2? YES

Will I continue to be a subscriber moving forward? NO

I have cancelled my subscription

 

And I suggest you pay a little more attention to that last metric I offered, as it is the most important metric of all.

 

Now Eric, can you please give us your feedback on the topics listed below, and we simply ask you to be as constructive as possible. Include information such as

Total Number of Subscriptions

Did the total number of subscription go up since 4.0?

How many subscribers cancelled their subscription since 4.0.2 was released?

Is this number of cancellations acceptable?

Do you think that there may be a correlation between those two events?

 

Once you have a handle on these metrics, please let us know your personal experience with those numbers.

 

5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%

80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers

Attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer

 

I know I a coming off pretty harsh, but after all of the boneheaded screwups subscribers have had to deal with, just since the launch of SoR up to today, could you have really expected anything different?

 

Happy Gaming!

 

Priceless +1

[SamAnders]

It's really not too hard now, it's just so tedious. I don't enjoy having to use my self-heal and wait for every cooldown between every fight. Edited November 19, 2015 by SamAnders

[Nerethriel]

Your level : 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 200

Discipline: Jedi Shadow / Kinetic Combat

Companion: Nadia Grell

Companion role: healer

Companion Influence level: 10

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): Nar Shaddaa: Destroying the Star Fortress (H2+)

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

I met no noticeable difficulty until the last boss. It was my first try at a H2+ Star Fortress mission, and some parts were a bit challenging (i.e. I died a couple of times until I figured out what was happening, and then won easily). But I hit a wall with the last encounter.

 

The small rooms make the camera awkward to handle, so I was sometime slow to spot the moving AOE, or the droid. Even with a healing companion, mistakes are very, very punishing. I figured out the strategy, but the execution is too tight and unforgiving.

 

Overall, I'm happy with the companion nerf. That they could play the game without me, and were more powerful than me, made the game unrewarding. I renewed my subscription partly to enjoy the game post-nerf. But maybe the nerf was a bit too strong in some areas. If the Star Fortress H2+ are made to be soloed with a companion, then I feel that it's not balanced correctly.