Companion Change Feedback

[Ghisallo]

I know you're trying to put out fires here man, and I can respect that, as I am a diehard SWTOR fanboy myself, but they made a huge mistake with this, even I have to accept that. This one is bad, and they need to fix it, fast. These people talking about population decreases aren't joking, it's real.

 

No I agree they made a mistake. I think they did craptastic testing and launched what amounts to a broken game. I am PISSED. If they had launched the companions we see today and not the OP beasts they did we would not be having this problem. People would complain, as they always do, about the grind. Yes a few would leave, as they always do. However giving that much power then giving what 48 hours of official notice it was being taken away? God himself could come down on a cloud promising this was the best for everyone and SOE simply would not care, that is how some gamers are.

 

I am just anal retentive as all hell. So in this case I say people should.

 

A. If you want to give negative feedback you should at least say what your issue is. Just saying "they won't listen" and stuff drives me nuts. About what? The over all expac goals? Only the impact of the level sync quests? The idea of the H2 SF being the solo equivalent of a HM FP?

B. If you are specific be constructive. Just saying it sucks does nothing... Use the format Eric noted here.

C. If you are not going to do the above you staying here complaining is only, first making you more frustrated and creating the impression to BW that you are one of those people that will rant and rave but still be here in 6 months.

 

Canceled subs accompanied by a drop off in forum participation are metrics BW will notice.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Kiesu]

When you say "git gud" you mean "What? You don't have FD? Hahaha!". Guardians/Juggernauts have the best DCDs and ED/FD is borderline OP.

 

Yeah that must be it. There is no way anyone in this thread already have tried SF HM on jugg/guardian and FAILED it. There has.

 

Look I'm not worried doing it again tomorrow on another class if thats so hard to believe. I can even PM you, just ask <3

 

If another class however, is not good enough for you either and you go "duh OP class" then I'm gonna have to palmface you

Edited November 20, 2015 by Kiesu

[Malchessar]

A. If you want to give negative feedback you should at least say what your issue is. Just saying "they won't listen" and stuff drives me nuts. About what? The over all expac goals? Only the impact of the level sync quests? The idea of the H2 SF being the solo equivalent of a HM FP?

B. If you are specific be constructive. Just saying it sucks does nothing... Use the format Eric noted here.

C. If you are not going to do the above you staying here complaining is only, first making you more frustrated and creating the impression to BW that you are one of those people that will rant and rave but still be here in 6 months.

 

Canceled subs accompanied by a drop off in forum participation are metrics BW will notice.

 

I don't use the forums a lot, but when I do I try to be as informed as possible while also expressing how I feel. Sometimes, not everyone is able to convey their feelings (internet can only do so much, it doesn't capture the human element) and all we can do is give a response of how we feel about a change.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Malchessar
Didn't quote properly

[Fardarter]

"The team will be reviewing all feedback, along with supporting data, to see what / if any future adjustments need to be made. Thank you all in advance for your feedback!"

 

Let me get this straight, you guys are actually going to think before you make huge changes in the game? Isn't it a little late for that? You nuked companions on a whim and didn't tell anyone about it until a day before you did it. Now you are trying to portray a measured informed decision making process?

 

Basically spur of the moment 70% nerf to companions, shouldn't you have asked the community for feedback, I dont know from like the test server?

 

You guys are so full of crap it reeks in here.

 

You made an announcement a day or 2 before the patch, you didn't test it with paying customers. Any consequences to the bottom line are on you and you deserve everything that may or may not come with it.

[Malchessar]

"The team will be reviewing all feedback, along with supporting data, to see what / if any future adjustments need to be made. Thank you all in advance for your feedback!"

 

Let me get this straight, you guys are actually going to think before you make huge changes in the game? Isn't it a little late for that? You nuked companions on a whim and didn't tell anyone about it until a day before you did it. Now you are trying to portray a measured informed decision making process?

 

Basically spur of the moment 70% nerf to companions, shouldn't you have asked the community for feedback, I dont know from like the test server?

 

You guys are so full of crap it reeks in here.

 

You made an announcement a day or 2 before the patch, you didn't test it with paying customers. Any consequences to the bottom line are on you and you deserve everything that may or may not come with it.

 

This is exactly what has been done since the very beginning, and they're even doing it now. I am truly disappointed, but I won't feel bad if they fail after this.

[Macabrae]

pffft.. this thread is nothing more than fluff. They aren't going to do anything

 

People have been giving testimony here for two days and now they want detailed information?

 

Eric didn't care about detailed information when they let the companions be the way they were for weeks. He didn't care about detailed information and player feedback when they dropped the nerf bomb from orbit

 

A now they want feedback with supporting data? As if they didn't have access to any of that before?

 

I call BS. This is nothing more than an attempt at damage control so they can blow us all of until after the holidays.

 

Note that he said "Future Adjustments" Not immediate. Not soon. Not even When they get around to it.

 

We are all just being duped again. We wont see any kind of 'adjustments' until some future patch that wont happen until well after BW enjoys their Christmas vacations using our subscription moneys that they suckered us out of.

Sadly, I agree with this post.

[Brianloveslisa]

This nerf caused me to quit until the it has been changed back before the patch i have already stopped the sub because i can not do anything i was able to do before and i had understanding of my class 216gear and rank 40+ comps now its all wasted i should just make a Dispute with my CC company and reverse all charges to Bioware in past 6weeks

[DjSnazzyduds]

I tend to be a very optimistic and positive guy, and I know Eric means well, but Bioware just has a terrible track record in listening and handling information. I hope a middle ground solution does come out of this thread, I do miss the companions actually being useful.

 

It's just when it comes to communication, Bioware is hands down the worst game developer in keeping their fans/playerbase in the loop, in my gaming experience.

[Kiesu]

Just out of curiosity because I havent seen numbers on this yet, how much does Presence VS Influence actually affect companion performance? Does one affect it more than the other?

 

My presence of all characters is very high and I have hard time comparing as i cant lower it, but have pretty much no issues killing anything with low influence companions while having high presence.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Kiesu

[Nommaz]

No, he made an assumption. He assumed that people would take it in context. Part of that context in the mechanics of the game itself since that is what the statement concerns. If you turned off your play experience and looked at the mechanics and asked not "how does the game feel" or "how do I want the game to feel?" But rather "how SHOULD the game feel based on these mechanics and paths of progression?". His statement is clear. The problem is people were looking at his statement in the best possible light because of their bias on how they wanted the game to feel.

 

Again its unclear and wasn't explained properly, you cannot make a statement based on an assumption, you make it based on being clear in understanding.

 

I can assume all I like that my customers understand what I am saying, however in doing so will likely be wrong.

This is shown in this respect, you and I read it differently, therefore it wasn't put clearly, regardless of what context he meant, it did not come across.

Why? because he assumed we would comprehend it the same way. therefore was NOT clear.

The second way was clear, and we all understood it, because he took the time to make it that way, without any assumptions that people understood.

 

I am older and had alot of life experiences, management skills, business ownership skills, customer service skills, however in school I did poorly, I suck at grammar, and was not properly schooled, have very little learned knowledge, and even left before I was supposed to.

You on the other hand seem schooled, you know the meaning to words I'd have to look up, and we think totally differently, is it so hard to believe that an assumption to what he meant would be totally different?

Any any PR type of position would be fully aware of this, and won't make broad statement based in assumptions.

 

Why you are even arguing with me on this is wierd... and sorry maybe you would prefer "A discussion based on differing opinions"

[TFBWYAG]

I am just anal retentive as all hell. So in this case I say people should.

 

A. If you want to give negative feedback you should at least say what your issue is. Just saying "they won't listen" and stuff drives me nuts. About what? The over all expac goals? Only the impact of the level sync quests? The idea of the H2 SF being the solo equivalent of a HM FP?

B. If you are specific be constructive. Just saying it sucks does nothing... Use the format Eric noted here.

C. If you are not going to do the above you staying here complaining is only, first making you more frustrated and creating the impression to BW that you are one of those people that will rant and rave but still be here in 6 months.

 

Canceled subs accompanied by a drop off in forum participation are metrics BW will notice.

 

I mean this in the nicest way, this is good information, in a general way, but keep in mind, I'm on a 6 month auto renew subscription, even if I canceled my sub a month ago, I still have 4 more months of game time.

 

At the present time, for some reason I just don't feel like logging into the game, well, I haven't felt like logging into the game since Tuesday. I have logged into it total of 3 times, played for a couple of hours, didn't enjoy myself, logged back out, came back here to see what's up

 

And I speak for myself, but, I'm enjoying seeing the different posts more then I'm enjoying playing the game right now. And just as I'm typing that, I come to realize, that's pretty damn sad

[Halinalle]

Copy & paste from another thread with added numbers from short test for buffed Medical Probe.

 

Commando, level 65

Gunnery

Gear: 208s, 216 implant/offhand, 200 implant, 2x 204 set piece armorings, 204 relics

Augments: 8x 186 Power

3% healing increased utility

 

Med Shot:

Lowest I've seen: 1477

Highest: a bit over 3200

 

Medical Probe (unbuffed):

Lowest:4109

Highest: 8008

No cooldown

Activation time can be reduced with Charged Barrel stacks.

 

Medical Probe (buffed at 5 stacks of Charged Barrel)

Lowest I saw during the short test: 8011

Highest I saw during the test: 19016

No cooldown

Instant

 

4X, rank 14

Channeled heal:

929, 1400+ when crits, 3 ticks

 

Quick Kolto Burst:

Low: 3600-ish

High: 5600-ish

7,8s cooldown

Edited November 20, 2015 by Halinalle

[Ghisallo]

Sadly, I agree with this post.

 

I think people are ignoring why this post was necessary. Some of us tried to explain what BWs probable intent was by looking at the actual design of the expac. All the stuff nthe H2 SF tied to multiple progression paths, the achievements etc all indicated that there would be a progression in the content easy>moderate>hard.

 

People said "no they don't want a grind they know the story players and not MMO players are their bread and butter" and similar things.

 

The point of this thread is to make it clear what their design intent was... That they wanted some challenges, since saying that in an early post was missed. Now it can not be missed. They are highly unlikely to change their grand plan substantially, so yeah if you simpky want the companions reverted it is likely a lost cause. However they could be willing to make some changes to make players less pissed off. The only way to know what changes to make though are if the players give their current gear level and their subjective opinion of their experience in the content.

 

If the main complaints are not uniform across all tiers of progression the issue could be in the level sync, even the individual encounter. If it is uniform then yeah it would be the companion. Until you have the data you can not prioritize tasks. Until you prioritize tasks you can not give even estimated time tables on fixes.

[Cedia]

Hey BioWare, maybe you should get with the times. It ain't 2000 anymore, and people don't want their games to be tedious. Even EQ, the game that invented tedium, has moved forward and away from that.

 

A lot of us thought you understood this when you released 4.0 and then said nothing for close to a month. But now we understand that you don't.

 

You STILL don't understand your market. People who want to play games for the story don't want a big challenge. The people who want a challenge are the ones spacebarring through your story. Make a choice. You can't please everyone. This is why your game has never lived up to its potential -- you want to cater to everyone.

 

Well, guess what -- right now with these changes the only market that you're going to attract is the one stuck in 2000. Yes, you developers are most likely the ones who loved those old games, but you need to step the hell down off your high horses.

 

If this doesn't revert, I'm going to cancel *yet again* and go play some old games that have changed in response to their current market.

 

Oh, and sorry, you won't get any "metrics" from me, because I know it's just a smokescreen to cover your arrogant asses.

 

Good *********** luck with your game.

[Nommaz]

And I speak for myself, but, I'm enjoying seeing the different posts more then I'm enjoying playing the game right now. And just as I'm typing that, I come to realize, that's pretty damn sad

 

I realised this exact same thing today, right now I am enjoying the forums more than the game, even looking forward to people responding to me so we can have a back and forth... sad isnt it.

[novasavage]

Seeing a lot of people posting stats as 65's on planetary Heroics, that should not even be what we are measuring from. If you can't do planetary Heroics we have a HUGE problem with playstyle. The meter should be H2 SF at this point.

 

Just trash the "One and Only" Period across the board. People will cry a lot less (in the long run).

[Ghisallo]

Again its unclear and wasn't explained properly, you cannot make a statement based on an assumption, you make it based on being clear in understanding.

 

I can assume all I like that my customers understand what I am saying, however in doing so will likely be wrong.

This is shown in this respect, you and I read it differently, therefore it wasn't put clearly, regardless of what context he meant, it did not come across.

Why? because he assumed we would comprehend it the same way. therefore was NOT clear.

The second way was clear, and we all understood it, because he took the time to make it that way, without any assumptions that people understood.

 

I am older and had alot of life experiences, management skills, business ownership skills, customer service skills, however in school I did poorly, I suck at grammar, and was not properly schooled, have very little learned knowledge, and even left before I was supposed to.

You on the other hand seem schooled, you know the meaning to words I'd have to look up, and we think totally differently, is it so hard to believe that an assumption to what he meant would be totally different?

Any any PR type of position would be fully aware of this, and won't make broad statement based in assumptions.

 

Why you are even arguing with me on this is wierd... and sorry maybe you would prefer "A discussion based on differing opinions"

 

Well I am older too with much the same experience (though perhaps in a more regimented setting). I wouldn't even have addressed the issue if you hadn't indicated, first, that he was either lying or uninformed. But yeah I see you point on debating what amounts to semantics. Pretty silly lol... Just bored and away from my PC... Smartphone for the win.

[TFBWYAG]

I realised this exact same thing today, right now I am enjoying the forums more than the game, even looking forward to people responding to me so we can have a back and forth... sad isnt it.

 

Totally with you mate

[Atalantia]

It has only changed in the minds of people who read into those statements what they wanted to. If you take them in complete context using words like "more challenging" and the like mean a lot. Additionally any who actually looked at the mechanics inside the H2 SF knew he was NOT talking about them.

 

Half the reason for this OP I think was to tell people "okay need to hold their hands on this one" because I posted what was in essence the same analysis of the content on Tuesday but was told I was wrong. I read the exact same original comments by Eric BUT I also looked at the game mechanics and applied them to his comments. You can't really understand a statement unless you understand what they are talking about, in this case the expac design.

 

 

 

This was an issue I saw happening BEFORE the expac even launched due to the phasing in on the story.

Pretty much everything you said actually were things that I said were making this expac a gamble from when it was announced until August when I took a break but people were so busy talking about "focus on the story" they said I didn't know what I was talking about.

 

I agree with a lot of what you have said. However he had two chances yesterday, or that's the only two post I saw concerning the companion patch, He was asked point blank would the customer still be able to complete the content with a Compn and himself.

 

His answer to me read, "sure you can that as H2+s where designed for PC and Comp" and i paraphrase that.

 

As far as this past weeks patch, as i said earlier I can still do the content but really am not that interested in that much grind for fluff rewards. Also from my understanding of the PR done before Xpac release they were touting this as casual, maybe I misunderstood them? When i want to do something challenging in game we grab 8-16 people and go do NiM HM or ops.

 

So basically imho, Tuesday BW shot themselves in the foot with the casual gamers. These people wouldn't have unsubbed when they finished the first pass through KOTFE. They would have taken all 20, 30, 40 however many characters they have across all servers through this and ground out rank 50 on every companion forever. Thats what most of them play for, not PvP not raid gear, just to have some fun for a couple of hours a day. Most would have spent money on the CM, as i believe thats there biggest market for the CM

 

 

Sure there are alot of us that have been around since beta either full time or off and on whatever but the game has never been Nightmare mode and with the Tuesday patch thats exactly what they made it for people who cant spend 2-4 hours once or twice a week doing Hard content.

 

Much like Tux's has said in multiple post, this is probably the biggest mistake they've (BW) has made. It will drive off a lot of people whether you want to believe that or not. I do.

[Ghisallo]

Hey BioWare, maybe you should get with the times. It ain't 2000 anymore, and people don't want their games to be tedious. Even EQ, the game that invented tedium, has moved forward and away from that.

 

A lot of us thought you understood this when you released 4.0 and then said nothing for close to a month. But now we understand that you don't.

 

You STILL don't understand your market. People who want to play games for the story don't want a big challenge. The people who want a challenge are the ones spacebarring through your story. Make a choice. You can't please everyone. This is why your game has never lived up to its potential -- you want to cater to everyone.

 

Well, guess what -- right now with these changes the only market that you're going to attract is the one stuck in 2000. Yes, you developers are most likely the ones who loved those old games, but you need to step the hell down off your high horses.

 

If this doesn't revert, I'm going to cancel *yet again* and go play some old games that have changed in response to their current market.

 

Oh, and sorry, you won't get any "metrics" from me, because I know it's just a smokescreen to cover your arrogant asses.

 

Good *********** luck with your game.

 

If you think this game is more tedious than the following... WoW, EQ, EQ2 or RIFT.... I don't know what to say. It is more "tedious" than 3 days ago but in comparison to these other games? Yeah no.

[LordRetz]

My level 20 Jedi infiltrator in average gear gets wrecked by packs with 2 silver mobs in a Taris story instance post patch. He gets torn up like tissue paper, and the comp heals are garbage. Companion on heal mode, obviously. Comp influence is level 9. I have similar experiences now on all the toons I am leveling right now that are specced in a dps discipline. If they don't have a tank spec they are S.O.L. Went tank spec and it's easy but I feel like that shouldn't be a requirement in leveling/story content.

 

I have no endgame toons as endgame does not interest me. I'm here for the story.

 

Btw, it should be common sense, but when you nerf something as drastically as you did there are bound to be problems. Probably better to do things in small increments until you hit a sweet spot for tuning instead a hamfisted 70% sucker punch.

[Noyjitat]

But fix what? Change their entire paradigm for the expac in terms of difficulty levels and time to complete content? People keep saying "give me back my companion" when the reason why they nerfed them was because of their master plan for the expac. The people feeding the toxic environment aren't even explaining what they are angry at any more. Vague BS about "not listening etc". Not listening to what, say something cogent.

 

What's sad about the toxicity is that I am beginning to think it is intentional on some parts. Was talking to a friend who was angry as hell about this change. They didn't see this thread. I referred them to it. He read the OP and said "oh okay this change makes sense then. I assumed the expac was supposed to be easy mode though and that they just caved to elitists. Still having fun though so no use raging now."

 

The comments that do not address the actual goals elucidated in the OP serve only to enflame people, to further the tin foil hat theories etc. They do not even come close to making BW reconsider their master plan because they contain nothing constructive.

 

I would get and respect the Don Quixote trying to explain in a cogent argument why BW's plan for the expac is wrong. Who I have problem with is the person who simply poor's gasoline on the fire.

 

I've run my tests on old content, not just heroic2s and the heroic star fortress. The healing by companions is worse than it was before this expansion and some things simply won't be soloable anymore. Just simply proving that the healing is worse than previous expansion is more than enough to warrant a fix and adjustment. It also means that problem transfers over to the newer stuff as evident in heroic star fortress testing.

 

Finally the damage value was damage role was scaled back too much. With it being okay (but not great) in level sync pre 60 content and horrible in the new content. I posted this in the most constructive manner as possible but it is disheartening to see people still trying to say this changes were fine when they clearly are not.

[Joefjr]

Dr.Lokin in tank mode as a Rakghoul still has his weapon shown in his hands, he also opens up but doing his taunt then he does the grapple.

 

PLEASE fix it so when i turn off a companion skill it STAYS off, its very annoying to constantly keep having to turn it off. Coming out of a conversation always turns it back on and this is VERY annoying because i want to be able to control when they use the grapple/stun and I'm ALWAYS having to turn it off

Edited November 20, 2015 by Joefjr

[Direach]

I've had no difficulty soloing all the planetary heroics on my various characters. I'm an experienced player, I know my abilities and how/when to use them, and I know when I'm in over my head.

 

That said: there are some improvements that could be made. I don't think the problem lies in the companions at this point so much as with the wildly imbalanced heroics. Many of the now-Heroic 2+'s seem to have simply had some group sizes reduced, some golds converted to silvers, some silvers made into regular, or removed. But I don't think that was enough tuning.

 

A lot of these heroics are pretty obviously former H4's, modified as I mentioned above. But they can still be very tough on players. The worst part is that they're not FUN to solo, and that's why they need to be tuned. Nobody minds a hard fight, but when the entire heroic is nothing but hard fights, it is a lot less fun. Especially when the reward is no better than if you ran into a cave, killed a few lurkers, and ransacked Agent Mynock's body in under 2 minutes.

 

A few examples of current Heroics that should be examined, and possibly re-tuned to make them more player-friendly:

 

Corellia: CorSec Crackdown

Voss: Cyber Mercenaries

Voss: Rock Eaters

Belsavis: Breakthrough

Belsavis: The Tyrant

Belsavis: A Lesson is Learned

Ilum: Poisonous Strategy

Makeb: The Viper's Nest

Makeb: The Observer

Makeb: The Specialists

Makeb: Savage Skies

Makeb: For the Record/False History (practically impossible with just a companion because of the trap mechanics in the rooms)

 

Or, if you don't want to change the heroics, at least consider offering better rewards for the former Heroic 4's, and some of the tougher/longer H2's. Any mission where you have to kill 25-30 strong/elite mobs, for example, should yield a better reward than killing a few klor'slugs or talking to a droid.

[DOOMOCTAGON]

As a casual PVE'R there has got to be a balance between 4.0 and what you all have done now. Getting companions to the highest lvl is not the easiest thing. Even with very good gear and only lvl 15-20 companions at 65 it is a serious struggle and far to much of an effort of dying over and over to accomplish anything to make it worth my while to play. At it's current state I just don't log in to play. Please find the balance. This one extreme to the next is to much. Do it quickly too.