Companion Change Feedback

[Ghisallo]

Here is my other problem with this here is eric live on the stream oh we created and new heroic 2 that every one can jump into and have fun and with level sink wont be a problem solo you comps are better then ever yada yada

 

Should i pull up you swtor stream and prove you lied to us BW Eric and i quote you are very strong with level sync which means what on how hard the heroic 2s level should be with level sink medium content huh.

 

here the stream to prove you bw lied to us through Eric http://www.twitch.tv/swtor/v/18528261 at the 2 hour mark he talks how heroic 2s should be no problem making them sound easy only to back track BTW Eric not blaming you just your dev team for saying it should be challenging when you state on a stream it should be easy to do...

 

No were in that info which was advertised all over the net which can fall on ground of false advertising and lead to legal trouble for you bw...

 

Word like jump right in no problem play how you want this stuff is easy your stronk

 

Even though i do not run this content would piss me the hell off if i did know this. I stick to player not NPC as NPC have dumb AI that can give a remote challenge over a player.

Just thought i would point this out to you for others.

 

Watch it again... His exact words are "if you are a capable player.". Then read what he says here about MAYBE INITIALLY needing help until you understand the game better.

 

They are completely consistent. (BTW he says the capable thing @ 2:20.)

 

I get people expected something else. They thought they had it when the companions were as powerful as they are. This change will upset people. However none of the statements Eric has made since this weekend, including this OP, is inconsistent with prior BW statements, including this live stream. The fact you miss the comment at 2:20 I think shows that some people may be guilty of hearing and reading what they want to hear and see rather what is actually released.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Imadian]

Oh he does, he comes over from his Troll Post to cause some trouble here and then returns to his Troll Post for a while again,

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=854931

Ahh I see, I'll ignore him then and move on. Thanks for the heads up!

[Zanriel]

I ran numbers through Parsec and I'm out-DPS'ing my DPS companions as a Sage Seer (healer spec) even while healing!

 

Here's a fight I'm looking at right now, the Alderaan level 34 heroic area (level synced to even) with Koth as a companion in DPS stance.

 

I'm doing 348 DPS and 154 HPS, total damage dealt 16,686, total healing done 7,360.

 

Koth is doing 311 DPS with 14,892 total damage dealt. That's on a single target. If I don't have to heal at all I'm doing a little over 500 DPS.

 

In the same area with my level 40 Vigilance guardian and T7 as a companion, she's doing around 550 DPS while T7 is putting out around 250... in DPS stance, with a decked out modded weapon that's superior to anything my Guardian has equipped.

 

In most fights as a DPS'er with a healing companion, the fight is over with 20%-30% health remaining on me and the companion. Some fights result in death if heroic moment and shield is on cooldown.

 

With T7 as a tank, anything beyond one gold and one silver is impossible. He dies too quickly, taking over 500 damage per second from enemy attacks and healing himself for about 20 health per second.

 

It's not fun, it's not "hard" or "challenging" it's just tedious and annoying. As a healer I should never be able to out-DPS my DPS companion, that's ridiculous. Basically, companions are about 50%-70% the power level of a decebt player in bad gear.

 

I'm uploading a Youtube video now, I'll post the link when it's done.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Zanriel

[JourrnoRush]

okay, I DO know how to play, thanks. Why be an arrogant ***? I guess you don't know what's going on with the latest patch?

no, I guess a hardcore player who thinks that NO ONE knows how to play their class would care.

 

I do. The patch reduced companions because they were OP. The result was a bunch of people complaining over it.

 

I hope they hold true to the nerfs like with the slot machine.

 

I'm not being arrogant, I offered you solutions to your problems. Though, like most of the people crying on this thread, you took it personally. You probably need to group with someone to clear the content, its okay, that's why its an MMO. If you are having trouble still, I'm on Ebon Hawk I'll help you.

[Nommaz]

. It appears they agree with us and not you, sorry.

 

They agree with the bank balance.

 

And your attitude sucks BTW telling people they can't play because they are having issues is not warranted nor accurate in fact why dont you jump on a 208 ish level DPS with a 10-15 levlish heals and a high level planet and show us your Video where you do all 2H successfully without issue.

[JourrnoRush]

Oh he does, he comes over from his Troll Post to cause some trouble here and then returns to his Troll Post for a while again,

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=854931

 

You're adorable. Post that supports the nerfing of companions = trolling. Well, BW agrees with me hence why the nerfing went through. Guess they are trolling too right?

[TFBWYAG]

You're adorable. Post that supports the nerfing of companions = trolling. Well, BW agrees with me hence why the nerfing went through. Guess they are trolling too right?

 

lol, no they're not trolling, they are shooting themselves in the foot, or worse

[sjscorpiomark]

I decided to sit and play through a full day, 8ish hours of story and planetary H2s on my sentinel (now level 43 using rank 27 t7 in healer role) just to get a wide assortment of situations under my belt before responding.

 

While the story missions are completely doable with only a couple moments of any kind of drama they are taking noticeably longer than 4.0. is it too long, I can't say for others but to me yeah the extra time avoiding fights or healing up between groups of regulars with a couple silvers here and there does slow down the pace enough to start to get annoying (I don't like starting fights below 90% health, even in open world out of caution always have always will). healing after a gold and others pack or champion fight is fine but not for trash packs out in the world.

 

H2s mostly okay died a few times because I was not micro managing threat on some of the bigger pulls and t7 died so I had no heals. or due to poor design/aggro rules.

 

for example on Locust H2 I activated the engine and my 5 golds popped. I leapt to them and using all my cooldowns/stuns/defensive abilities had all of them down except one, but then someone else activated the engine and popped their 5 golds, well instead of aggroing the other player they instantly aggroed me because I happened to be closer (I think)? who knows but that sucked obviously I died, if you are going to pop adds have them force aggro to the person who caused the action not the closest random person for christ's sake.

 

H2+ Rakgoul release, slow as hell (ALSO fix the spawn rate so if more than 2 people are in the area it does not take 30 minutes to respawn enough mobs to finish) but only died once due to a double gold pull where they are me alive with T7 not even close to keeping up on the heals.

 

Any more than 2 golds at a time seems to be the limit, get 2 golds and a silver and 90% I am gonna eat dirt because my healing comp can't keep up with the incoming damage.

 

While I think an adjustment was probably needed in 4.0, I absolutely think the balance point to keep it 'casual' friendly and fun was in the 10-20% range not anything close to what we got in 4.0.2. I will continue to play until Dec. 7th when my sub expires but not going to re-sub unless a more reasoned balance of companion effectiveness is reached. 80% of 4.0 I would probably re-sub anything close to 4.0.2 and I will go to something else.

 

like many others I have no interest in 'end-game' Ops, hard modes or any of that I was having a great time in 4.0 as an easy low stress fun game where I did not need to work hard to just get through content as I advance through the story and planets. now H2s are getting skipped, and thus a whole category of content I was seeing last week I will be missing from here on out, and I feel let down by the promise of easy casual friendly H2s getting taken away and while I can technically complete them they are in no way FUN or ENTERTAINING right now which is the whole reason I got into 4.0

[Deathsightofhell]

My Main character stuff Click the Arrow to See this stuff post

 

 

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

 

Hey folks,

 

Following the Companion changes we made Tuesday in 4.0.2, we want to gather your feedback on your gameplay experiences. We hope by this point you have had some time to jump in and get your hands on the changes yourselves. First, before we get into the feedback we are looking for, let’s talk a bit about our specific design goals related to Companions:

 

• Leveling Content – Challenge Level: Low. To complete this content, a player should have a basic understanding of game mechanics and have level-appropriate gear. Their companion’s role shouldn’t matter.
   
  

-eric

 

 

• 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.

[Imadian]

They agree with the bank balance.

 

And your attitude sucks BTW telling people they can't play because they are having issues is not warranted nor accurate in fact why dont you jump on a 208 ish level DPS with a 10-15 levlish heals and a high level planet and show us your Video where you do all 2H successfully without issue.

 

I would love to see such a video.

[Elceleth]

EA ( I refuse to call this Bioware anymore ) screwed up and NOW asks for feedback ?

 

No.

 

You know exactly what you have done.

Either give us the means to play enjoyable Solo content.

(And receycled H2+ are stretching this already) or don't be surprised if the people get angry and move on.

 

Oh well, I intended to switch to Fallout 4 anyway as soon as SWTOR gets boring again. I guess I'll switch faster as anticipated.

 

 

For those l2p Fanboys... if I need to max out my char for the standard bread and butter quests, there

is something wrong with the gameplay not with the way I play my char.

 

 

Edith says:

 

Just died agaim because of crappy programming and lack of reserves in my char to deal with the fall out.

 

I'm out.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Elceleth

[Ghisallo]

I ran numbers through Parsec and I'm out-DPS'ing my DPS companions as a Sage Seer (healer spec) even while healing!

 

Here's a fight I'm looking at right now, the Alderaan level 34 heroic area (level synced to even) with Koth as a companion in DPS stance.

 

I'm doing 348 DPS and 154 HPS, total damage dealt 16,686, total healing done 7,360.

 

Koth is doing 311 DPS with 14,892 total damage dealt. That's on a single target. If I don't have to heal at all I'm doing a little over 500 DPS.

 

In the same area with my level 40 Vigilance guardian and T7 as a companion, she's doing around 550 DPS while T7 is putting out around 250... in DPS stance, with a decked out modded weapon that's superior to anything my Guardian has equipped.

 

In most fights as a DPS'er with a healing companion, the fight is over with 20%-30% health remaining on me and the companion. Some fights result in death if heroic moment and shield is on cooldown.

 

With T7 as a tank, anything beyond one gold and one silver is impossible. He dies too quickly, taking over 500 damage per second from enemy attacks and healing himself for about 20 health per second.

 

It's not fun, it's not "hard" or "challenging" it's just tedious and annoying. As a healer I should never be able to out-DPS my DPS companion, that's ridiculous. Basically, companions are about 50%-70% the power level of a decebt player in bad gear.

 

The numbers like this are appreciated BUT you don't give companion Affection. Also you have to remember that as the Companion is essentially part of you, when they tune the companions they are not saying that the dps companion should do more dps than you just because you are a healer, its more complicated than that.

 

First and foremost they simply care that you accomplish the task, while accounting for gear and companion affection of course. I'll use another example... Lana healing. One person kept complaining she was only healing 1.3-1.5k eHps. This is indeed true and is A LOT less than she used to heal for. Mine was low enough that she only healed for 1.1k eHps. However that MUCH lower eHps was for the final Exarch fight in the Nar Shaddah H2 SF. So that eHps seems to be on target. The actual number she performs is irrelevant because we are, essentially, one character as far as the game is concerned. What matters is that the numbers she produces, when combined with mine, allow me to accomplish the tasks as they intend.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[artbunny]

Since the latest patch, I played both on an 'end-game' character as well as leveled a Jedi Shadow, and I will provide feedback for both and all the companions I used since the patch.

 

SITH ASSASSIN

Your level: 65

 

Roughly Average Item Rating: A mixture of 220s, 216s and 208s, fully augmented. I think it all averages out to 216 gear.

 

Discipline: Darkness (Tank)

 

Companion, Companion Role, Companion Influence Level:

A) Senya Tirall, Healer, 20

B) Theron Shan, Healer, 27

 

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

A) Soloed a Star Fortress with Senya. I cleared all the content incl. paladins, and my toon never dropped more than 15% of health. Senya healed or fought depending on the situation, no glitches or moments of inactivity. No defensive cooldowns were necessary. No use of Heroic Moment.

B) Used Theron for many [Heroic 2] Missions over the course of the week. Witnessed the very same result – he healed or DPS'd depending on the situation, no freezes or moments of inactivity. My toon never lost more than 15% of health in any of her battles. No defensive cooldowns were necessary. No use of Heroic Moment.

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

If I had not known that the companion nerf had happened, on this toon, I wouldn't have noticed at all. She still clears all her content just as efficiently as she did before the patch, and noticed no moments of inactivity with her companions. I didn't notice any change in the amount of damage she took, or in the efficiency of the companion heals. They performed their role absolutely sufficiently.

 

JEDI SHADOW

Your level: 44

 

Roughly Average Item Rating: Gear in complete green 42 mods; no augments, no relics, no implants.

 

Discipline: Serenity (DPS)

 

Companion, Companion Role, Companion Influence Level:

A) Zenith, Healer, 6

B) Lt. Iresso, Healer, 3

C) Qyzen, Healer, 7

 

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

A) Used Zenith to level through all content after Balmorra until the end of Chapter 2. My toon didn't die once, and he healed and DPS'd according to the situation without any freezes or problems. Encountered one or two golden 'end bosses' that made both our health drop to approx. 15%, so I had to use defensive cooldowns and CC to avoid death. No Heroic Moment was used.

B) Used Lt. Iresso for Belsavis. My toon didn't die once, and he healed and DPS'd according to the situation without any freezes or problems. Encountered two golden 'end bosses' that made both our health drop to approx. 15%, so I had to use defensive cooldowns and CC to avoid death. No Heroic Moment was used.

C) Used Qyzen for his companion quests. My toon didn't die once, and he healed and DPS'd according to the situation without any freezes or problems. During his 'boss battles', my toon's health never dropped below 70%. No defensive cooldowns or Heroic Moment were used.

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

With my Shadow, I did indeed notice a few difficulty spikes that were not there before the companion nerf. Especially Iresso with his low influence had “trouble” in a few boss fights to heal up my Consular, but the situation never got critical since her CC and defensive cooldowns helped us to win these fights without even needing Heroic Moment. These “tougher” battles also only occurred twice in total and never while fighting regular mob groups, so I don't see it as an issue at all.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

In my gaming experience, the nerf of the companions doesn't increase the difficulty of the low or medium level content in any notable fashion. I can still clear all relevant content even with a low-influence companion without fear of death, and now even experience some interesting fights while leveling on occasion. Personally, I feel companions work very well still.

[TFBWYAG]

Again, you are taking this too personally. By telling you that you are most likely needing more gear, needing to use all skills available, etc. does not mean i'm belittling you. I'm sorry you are feeling that way. Perhaps this will help you since it appears I am really hurting your feelings, which was not my intention.

 

The only thing I laugh about, is how you guys get so worked up over someone trying to help you. The companions are here to stay, so it looks like you can either adapt or keep posting.

 

Good luck and God bless.

 

Don't flatter yourself, you are not even close, and it's a safe bet, I was playing video games long before you were born,,,

[Ghisallo]

EA ( I refuse to call this Bioware anymore ) screwed up and NOW asks for feedback ?

 

No.

 

You know exactly what you have done.

Either give us the means to play enjoyable Solo content.

(And receycled H2+ are stretching this already) or don't be surprised if the people get angry and move on.

 

Oh well, I intended to switch to Fallout 4 anyway as soon as SWTOR gets boring again. I guess I'll switch faster as anticipated.

 

 

For those l2p Fanboys... if I need to max out my char for the standard bread and butter quests, there

is something wrong with the gameplay not with the way I play my char.

 

Who said you had to max out your character for bread and butter quests that actually has control of the game? Screw the elitists that engage in such hyperbole. I think this is half the problem. Read Eric's OP here. That is the intent of the expac. Then address those issues, not some jerks.

 

That said some people making suggestions are not l2p fan boys. Eric said at the beginning of this post that people may need some assistance until they get better gear and "understand the game better." So if someone says "l2p" and walks away they are a jerk. If they are giving advice in a polite way, they are probably actually trying to help. If you feel the game should not have the two dynamics that Eric noted... Okay, your call, just seems odd to not be addressing that since their Plan for this expac is the actual issue, not a comment by a jerk.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Joefjr]

This HAS to be a bug with lvl sync, on Nar Shadda synced at lvl 26 my companion has 11.41% dmg reduction??? my dps shadow has more than double that amount while lvl synced. While at 65 the same companion has 27.22% dmg reduction.

 

Doing some of the higher lvl heroics on planets when your lvl sync at is at lvl or 1 below that of the mobs your fighting they are destroying the tank companion.

 

 

Influence SHOULD effect the Tank companions tanking but it NOT, the ONLY difference between a Rank 1 and Rank 50 companion at tank role is their HP's and the amount of damage they put out, they should get an increase in their tanking stats or damage reduction as influence ranks go up. This actually makes 4.0.2 tank companions VASTLY inferior to the pre 4.0 counterparts because we could actually increase their tanking stats and armor reducing their damage taken as they gear up.

[Torvai]

•Your level

65

 

•Roughly Average Item Rating

Used old Yavin 192 Companion gear with 174 PvP relics and offhand, just to see how far I can get.

 

•Discipline

Juggernaut, Vengeance

 

•Companion

Lana

 

•Companion role

Healer

 

•Companion Influence level

27

 

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

Star Fortress Heroic, did it solo without any buffs, so this run would've been my "One for All" Achievement, if I didn't have it already.

 

•Your personal experience while playing this content

Some groups were a challenge, especially the paladins and the Ephmeris Room ambush(2 Knights of Zakuul and 2 Skytroopers) are tough and I died there a few times. But all in all, while challenging, it was doable. Also, consider that my gear was utter cr*p(see above).

 

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.

Here's a video of the exarch fight of this run, died there once:

I have a video of the complete, uncut run uploading atm, but it'll take roughly 12 hours from now on(yes, my connection is that slow:o). I will edit it into this post once it's done.

 

 

Tl:dr: One for all Achievement is still doable, if you know your class and the game mechanics, how to use CC and cooldowns. I probably wouldn't have died once if I had used my raid gear, which is BiS 220 with a few 224 pieces. Will try that after work today.

 

Oh and the biggest problem aren't the pure numbers, it's that the companions sometimes just stand around doing nothing, or dealing damage, while the player character is in dire need of healing. Fix this, and most of the complaints would probably disapear.

 

Edit: Here's the video of the complete run:

Edited November 20, 2015 by Torvai

[Nommaz]

I would love to see such a video.

 

Yeah it appears being called out wasn't on his/her to do list today..

[JourrnoRush]

Don't flatter yourself, you are not even close, and it's a safe bet, I was playing video games long before you were born,,,

 

I doubt it, considering you use attacks such as "probably bullied" for when someone disagrees with you.

Does it bother you that the nerfs are here to probably stay? I'm going to assume you are unsubbing?

[Torvai]

I would love to see such a video.

 

Yeah it appears being called out wasn't on his/her to do list today..

 

I'm not the guy you asked this of, but see my post above

[Damask_Rose]

Your level 19 leveled to 22

Roughly Average Item Rating 34

Discipline Trooper with no advanced class

Companion Jorgan

Companion role Heal

Companion Influence level 4

Which Mission Solo Esseles

Your personal experience while playing this content Was easy throughout, no thanks to Jorgan. There are a couple of spots where he gets stuck and won't follow. He also took some afk breaks during most of the champion fights. He didn't seem to be doing any damage while he took his healing breaks.

 

Your level 22-24

Roughly Average Item Rating 34

Discipline Trooper with no advanced class

Companion Jorgan

Companion role Healing

Companion Influence level 8

Which Mission Tactical Esseles

Your personal experience while playing this content Was a little harder than Solo mode, but still pretty easy. Jorgan got stuck in the same spots. He didn't seem to take as many afk breaks from healing, but his healing did not keep pace with the champions damage output. I never got below 50%. Did not need to use med kits, unity or heroic moment.

[sjscorpiomark]

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

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. .

 

Thank You for the video, it shows accurately what an unbuffed new player doing story, not H2s are dealing with H2s are harder and require more class knowledge obviously which is fine but clearly even story line missions are not 'casual friendly' right now at least running DPS with healer comp. tank classes or healer classes may have it better off I don't know as I have only been playing DPS specs.

[TFBWYAG]

I doubt it, considering you use attacks such as "probably bullied" for when someone disagrees with you.

Does it bother you that the nerfs are here to probably stay? I'm going to assume you are unsubbing?

 

To assume only makes an azz out of u and me.

 

Speaking of attacks, if you want to call that an attack, or is it a guess, or here's a thought, am I hurting your feelings now? But anyway, how about the Headline of your Post, calling everyone in the anti-nerf threads "Whiners", that's a pretty nice way to talk about the SWtOR community.

 

Anyway, enough food for the Troll, you have a great day also, and God Bless

[Nommaz]

I'm not the guy you asked this of, but see my post above

As far as I am aware its not you trolling people calling them bad and telling them they cant play

[Deyjarl]

Based on these statements above, do you think that these are true after Tuesday’s changes?

 

Yes. I think they match right up with the original post description of each.

 

LVL 65

Rating: 208 (2 pieces of 216)

Discipline: Shield Tech

Companion: Scorpio

Comp role: Healer

Comp infl: 16

Heroic Star Fortress

 

Note: Completed One and Only after the changes. Would have before if Scorpio hadn't stole the boss kill.

 

 

Thoughts: I think perhaps part of the problem is just how you've named the different content.

You have Heroic 2 missions as Medium difficulty, and Heroic Star Fortress at High difficulty

yet both are called Heroic, so people doing Heroic 2 have the same expectation going in with

those when they do the Heroic Star Fortress, and they really shouldn't.

 

The Heroic Star Fortress should be clearly named something else, ______ Star Fortress, that clearly indicates it is a different level of difficulty than Heroic 2's.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Deyjarl