Companion Change Feedback

[Deyjarl]

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.

 

Unbuffed new players shouldn't be expecting to complete Heroic Star Fortress with ease.

 

Seems far too many player want to complete that with little to no prep at all.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Deyjarl

[Torvai]

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

 

Oh, I do this all the time

 

When some people say SF Heroic isn't solable anymore, while it is, then that's clearly a l2p issue. I don't know if you were talking about that specifically, but you get the idea

[JourrnoRush]

Yes. I think they match right up with what you describe.

 

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.

 

Amazing how so many of these are popping up.

 

Could it be that having gear, a decent companion, and being able to play your class means you can solo a flashpoint designated hard by the devs?

[Knockerz]

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?

 

You know you are trolling. This thread was design for people to post their feedback in the format Eric has shown in the first post. That is how Eric wants people to post in this thread. No where does it say he wants people to provide feedback or criticize the post of another player that followed the direction on how to post in this thread, which is what you are doing. If people followed the directions Eric posted, this thread would only have people posting their feedback in the format Eric posted in the first post. Therefore, you have not followed the direction of Eric and are trolling this thread.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Knockerz

[Deyjarl]

Could it be that having gear, a decent companion, and being able to play your class means you can solo a flashpoint designated hard by the devs?

 

208 gear is easy to get. You can farm 200 gear from the Solo version of Star Fortress.

 

People are expecting to do Heroic Star Fortress with no gearing effort at all. Read the OP, should know your class and have decent gear.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Deyjarl

[sjscorpiomark]

Unbuffed new players shouldn't be expecting to complete Heroic Star Fortress with easy.

 

Seems far too many player want to complete that with little to no prep at all.

 

I was not referring to SFs I am talking planetary H2s as your are progressing your story. the video I watched and commented on was of a level 33 on Taris.

[Bugattiboy]

Please give us feedback that we can ignore so we can say we listened.

Classic tactic that basically every single corporation has used. It's not the first time EA has used this tactic and this definitely won't be the last.

 

They claim they want to make this game more casual and single player friendly for the inevitable influx of players Episode VII will bring, but this change does the exact opposite. If a casual player doesn't have a good experience with your game they will won't spend their time, money, and effort to improve their experience they'll just find a new game because that's their nature. They don't tie themselves down with any particular game.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Bugattiboy

[Imadian]

I get your point, but MY point was that last week I was able to do the heroic nonsense, but after this patch I couldn't.

This is not a "learn to play" issue. I am so tired of hearing that tripe.

[JediJadd]

Amazing how so many of these are popping up.

 

Could it be that having gear, a decent companion, and being able to play your class means you can solo a flashpoint designated hard by the devs?

 

And they're tanks...

 

Try a TK sage. Or sniper...

Edited November 20, 2015 by JediJadd

[Hunterr]

Some feedback from me: First off they need to boost up all secondary stats on companions to actually make them worth using again. While im in dps spec I should not be able to out heal a healing companion and in tank spec i should not be able to out dps a dps companion. Dps/healing companions need to have all of their power/acc/alc/crit stats increased substantially and the tanks need all the shield/def/abs and armor rating stats boosted up big time.

 

Also I feel like this patch has killed any desire I had previously to get any other companions up to 50. Whats the point? At that level they are now preforming worse than my old companions in yavin weekly gear. So why should I have to grind out 40 new levels only to have them worse then they were? I was having fun post kotfe working on that influence and seeing my companions get stronger and more useful then they have ever been! Sure they were way too strong initially and tweaking was required, but this was just a bit too much. So ya my biggest issue is this patch turned a useful influence system to make companions actually better into one that makes them "better" only after you made them worse.

 

Initially you guys said the companions will level up with the player and influence would help make them even better! Now at 65 with a lvl 50 comp they have around 500-2k less on major and secondary stats so tell me how that compares to my current lvl when they have stats that low?

Edited November 20, 2015 by Hunterr

[Zanriel]

Here's my Youtube video:

 

[Psicotic]

If the history of MMOs is anything to say, not by much. Now you may be the exception, I don't know you so I would never say you would the following. Also note the core of this premise is that tuesday's change puts the game in a state not demonstrably different than before 4.0, it is only different from 3-4 weeks ago

 

Usually, if they are an existing player, when stuff like this happens people who will stop playing stop with in a very short time of an incident, like this one, lighting their fuse. If they keep playing "for the duration of their existing sub" they stay. Why? Well they were an existing player for a reason, they liked the game. Even though a big change occurred the change is only to a short term experience and the game is not all that much different that it was when they liked it before. So the people who were angry enough to say "I don't care if I have 3 months left" are gone and with them their rhetoric. The emotions of those who stayed to play cool, they get used to playing the game like they did before their brief period of OP and they keep playing.

 

How many people raged and said they were going to quit over the "bait and switch" of the slot machine here? How many actually left? Just as one example.

 

HeHe thanks for the reply

Well mostly you are righ i like it the game other way i will never been a subs, are the changes made the game imposible to me run anything? no im not gona lie and cry telling i cant do any stuff on the game now, and was a emotional decition? YES it was emotional because the game is not giving me that feeling of "Im enjoying running H2" farming for my aliance by example but not talking about just of the H2 and im letting out SF Fortress ii understand that will be harder than any of the others because is on the top of the content right now, what i try to explain with my bad english is, i know they must be hard and not just a sluggfest, but having at my side a companion that is more like a pet now to me than a partner ar my side helping me is not fun at all, and i must say im not claiming either for a OP companion, im asking for a fix, for a point where i feel my companion is a real sidekick and he is giving me a good support, that is lost for me atm.

 

And last why im still ussing the remaining days? i dont gona give free money to a company that on this moment dont care for the cassual players like me, im dont usse a referal code or some1 give to me the money for my sub, i worker hard for it and even i dont like it im gona use it (the time remaining) because thats real money for me. Luckly is just 7 days now.

 

Be well man.

[Admiral_Cain]

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.

 

I felt this needed bumping again since it does carry alot of what people have been telling me, I've tried hard to get my head around the 'nerfed' companions and all I hear is the screams of the people with 220+ gear with their companions at 50 influence, you know the ones .. that are in the Pvp chat screaming for players to go into ranked combat amd have no issues with the nerfbatting.

 

Sadly this 'nerf for me smacks the same moment when SWG rolled out the NGE, they didn't have an excuse since they run it two weeks before on the PTS only to have 80% of the players testing say 'roll with this and we'll be walking away' .. two weeks later the subs base dropped into what become the biggest 'epic fail' in mmo history. They didn't learn from the Trials of Obi Wan and now it seems you guys haven't learned from it either.

 

I class myself as a casual player I have various level toons from 18 (currently) to 65, I always use the companion setting 'Healer' since I tend to be reckless and want to get into the action regardless of what class I am, the highest influence level I have is Ensign Temple at 26 .. but it does make me laugh since my level 23 BH has Mako at 24 .. kinda feel your 'scaled' influence transfer was off base somewhat. I tried soloing Heroic Star Fortress 7 times and each time became a wipe against the exarch or the stage before .. left me logging out and reading a book whilst I let my anger subside. Now after the nerf .. seriously haven't bothered and will only do the Heroics up to Nar Shaddaa.

 

I understand fully that maybe the companions was 'op' but trying to get around where people got the percentage level eludes me .. however I do think maybe the ones whom understand that will allow me to agree with this 35-40% option, not 'op' but good enough to do what you said about things being fun with a diffculty level.

 

Personally I preferred the ability for full companion costumisation ! ala pre 4.0

Edited November 20, 2015 by Admiral_Cain

[Myracarrah]

Your level - 30

Roughly Average Item Rating - 70

Discipline - Healing Operative

Companion - Kaliyo

Companion role - DPS

Companion Influence level - 11

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) - Tatooine Class Missions

Your personal experience while playing this content - No deaths. No trouble. Kaliyo did her job pushing out damage, I barely had to heal either of us at the ends of fights. Was fast and easy. Absolutely no struggle with this content, I think I might have used sleep dart once.

 

Your level - 65

Roughly Average Item Rating - 216ish (half 208 half 216 with one 220 off hand)

Discipline - Carnage Marauder

Companion - None.

Companion Influence - 0

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) - Planetary H2 Grind starting at Korriban and working up to Alderan.

Your personal experience while playing this content - Fast and easy on Korriban. Didn't break a sweat, just fly in like a mara does and things fell over. I lost no noticable health and the only defense I ran was Cloak of Pain. Dromund Kaas again fast and easy. No deaths. The hardest part was waiting patiently for my turn for click updates (and those Mandos). Balmorrah again nice and fast. No deaths again but lost some HP on the overly caring droid quest, mostly because I was pulling more than one group (my own stupidity). No deaths. Had to hit Cloak of Pain a few times and Obfuscate. Tatooine, well here I actually died because I had a gold wander into my Sand People killing spree. My own fault. I need to watch my environment a bit more. Still entirely doable. Aldaran ran the first Heroic on my list solo before I got bored and moved on to other things. Two golds in a group, took some work. Entirely soloable but looking at channel hatred between fights. I actually had to hit my Obfuscate a few times, Force Choke, and had to run Saber Ward as well as Cloak of Pain. I am thinking, a companion would have made that a faster run.

 

Your level - 65

Roughly Average Item Rating - 208

Discipline - Lethality Operative

Companion - Scorpio

Companion role - Heal / DPS

Companion Influence level - 12

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

Your personal experience while playing this content - I ran that with Scorpio mostly healing. Up until the Droid on the bridge fight. For some strange reason when the adds would spawn Scorpio would rush off to stand infront of them CCing while the boss whittled away at my health. I wiped. Grrrr. So I go back in, start the fight again. Again Scorpio would rush to the adds to CC and leave me to my death. Hmmm something is not right here, but what to do? I revive and head back to the fight. Swapped Scorpio from Heal to DPS. Boss fell over dead at my feet, if he even got a chance to summon a second round of adds that fight, they hadn't finished rendering by the time he was ended. Figured that was the way I was running that SF, and kept Scorpio in DPS, rest of the instance went easily. I learned something. Sometimes it's not heals I need.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Myracarrah

[Sardoni]

When the designed challenge level requires a gear check higher than what is rewarded from completing said challenge there's more than just user error at work here. If you want it to require people; add it to the group finder. That's why the group finder exists right?

 

The "solo" star fortresses give blue 200 level items. The "heroic "star fortresses give purple 208 level items. You should be able to reasonably solo heroic if you geared up from solo. Regular gold knight mobs pose more of a challenge on my 200 gunslinger than champion knights. My 20 influence companion struggles in either tank, heal, or dps stance.

 

One major take away for me is that healer stance should probably put the AI in ranged gameplay mode. They rarely do any worthwhile attacks while in that stance. I'd argue further the auto attacks should just be disabled if they can't emulate a ranged style. That way they are less likely to be following the boss around probably getting a lot of splash damage themselves (when the exarch jumps in the air for example). If they were at range consistently at least they'd be at less risk. Also I personally expected Lana to emulate the Sith Inquisitor playstyle she demonstrated in the Revan fight in SoR. Ranged attacks and heals while wielding a lightsaber. Satele did the same. Just steal that AI for force user companions.

 

So while I feel the weight of the force user healing more (It just looks and feels better to me... style choice admittedly) I've taken to using someone like Nico who stays at ranged and heals. He still doesn't move away from bad, but it's less likely to shove himself in a precarious situation if I'm controlling the field (as I should be).

 

I'll never run star fortresses again on my 216 arsenal merc or my 216 powertech tank. Other than deco and arbitrary achievements it provides no value to my play experience since I have the companions. If that was the designed intent then mission accomplished. It surprised me that lockboxes weren't even a reward from repeating them. One of each. Potentially the per-requisite could be hacking the buff boxes you elect to find along the way. I'd rather spend my time doing the planet heroic 2's because that content is at least more sustainable and rewarding in the long run (not that I'm entirely satisfied with my end game sending me back to level 20 planets...).

Edited November 20, 2015 by Sardoni

[FrozenMist]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 208 (208 augmented Exarch pvp gear)

Discipline: Powertech Adv prototype

Companion: Lana

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 11

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

Your personal experience while playing this content: Best solo pve experience in a long time. Not too easy but certainly not too hard. I had some problems in the 3rd reactor room just before the Exarch and it took me a few tries to get it right. All in all a good experience.

[JoachimB]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 220 (fully augmented with 208; 192/198 relics)

Discipline: Telekinetics Sage

Companion: Senya Tirall

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 30

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

Your personal experience while playing this content: Most of the star fortress was as easy as before and posed little challenge (including Paladin and Sky Trooper Praetorian). I died once at the ambush in the EPHEMERIS room (finally got to see the detention level), and had some troubles with the last console room (died several times with or without heroic moment; was doable without it with some more tactical thinking). Exarch fight itself was slightly challenging but not really dangerous (used heroic moment there).

In general I found the content a nice challenge for playing solo and would be looking forward to trying to get the "One for All" achievement if I didn't already have it. However, it appears to be a lot harder on some classes, especially squishier ones without self healing.

[khonaan]

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.

 

thank you for your video,

it took you 15 minutes of testing to realize that there might be a problem for newcomers and casual players at lower levels with the nerf....

so basically this confirms that BW did absolutely no testing whatsoever and pulled a number out of their hat.

just watching the video i found 7 problems with your companion not related to the nerf...

 

im so discouraged at this moment, ill just shut up and go to bed.

Its utterly pointless trying to go thru this process with BW, as they cannot see the obvious staring them in the face.

[Halinalle]

CZ-198

CZ-5X Eradicator Droid (H2+ Off Message)

Commando / Gunnery / lvl65

Companion: 4X, rank 14

Companion role: Damage

 

No issues. Why I didn't use healing companion? Because my Commando heals more than 4X.

[Ghisallo]

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

 

While I find l2p to be a prejoritive I do have a question.

 

1 If people are still doing it when not "Uber geared" and with minimal or even zero Alliance buffs

2. If Eric himself in the OP makes comments like

--"..and has a greater understanding of the game..." (Regarding H2s)

--"... we expect you to have level-appropriate gear, a good understanding of your class..." (Regarding solo SF

--"...At this point we expect players to really understand their class, their companion, and their gear..."(regarding H2 SF)

 

Note I am not saying that this design was a smart idea, as a matter of fact I think it was a questionable idea. Solo dedicated players see solo content as "their content." They are not going to think nor care about the fact BW felt like they needed to add an upgraded vs of the Solo SF for the player who is waiting for a new HM FP or OP. If it can be soloed it's "theirs." This same solo dedicated playes does not expect "their content" to at any time require..." At this point we expect players to really understand their class, their companion, and their gear. Players should have sought out gear upgrades, as well as increased their companions’ Influence level. These are meant to be challenging and difficult to do solo."

 

BUT this is what BW designed. So it seems that asking, in a respectful way, how and under what circumstances people are attempting it if they can't complete it. If the persons issue is that they do not agree with the paradigm that seems legitimate information for the devs to know but some people seem to beating around that bush for some reason. Or am I wrong?

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Drunken_Ewok]

I decided to give the new content a break and level up my annihilation marauder. Level 26, freshly geared in crafted mods appropriate for the level, and arrived on Tatooine. Vette has level 15 influence, so I decided to give her a shot in the 3 different stances against a selected mob (Yes I'd wait till they respawned and fight them again)

 

Healing - pretty pathetic, Quinn healed far better pre 4.0. I was losing health like crazy and the heals were appearing randomly.

 

DPS - some improvement, I needed to pop a medpack, but it was an improvement on the heals. Vette did seem to grab a lot of aggro.

 

Tank - Vette died pretty fast leaving me to finish the mob alone, popped a medpack and barely survived.

 

I've played since launch, I've leveled plenty of characters of all the classes so consider myself fairly competent.

These characters are on my second account, so I don't have all the datacrons but have all 4 buffs, and am slowly working my way through achievements. If I was finding the mobs a tad tricky how are the new players coping? They likely would only have green gear, not crafted blue mods, their companions might have similar influence, but I'd guess they're dying far more than before.

 

Overall it felt more like a chore than fun. I know the game should have some challenges, but sheesh, trying to level a character and feeling like a complete noob each time you force leap into a mob because your companion can't keep up with the heals. it's just not fun any more.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Drunken_Ewok

[Deathsightofhell]

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.

 

I am an open minded veteran player, and i look at the high and low of all character and classes.not to mention , They gave out the level 60 token so player can do the Fallen Empire, and part the main story line does ask you to do the Heroic 2+ at least once, so with a single class buff, they going have a rough time attempting to solo, and companion don't carry their own weight,,they are just cheap med-pac's that u won't have to hit right now, and that all they are.

 

 

not to mention everyone who been saying it easym, mention using Heroic Moment ability, and using them to get the <one for all> Which shouldn't be the case if the player is skill enough they shouldn't need to use those to drop the boss to 50% and wait nearly for all the ability to reach cooldown to do the final real damage to kill.

 

not to mention people forget Heroic moment give them 2% max hp regen every 3 second for 2 whole mins. so higher health character Will heal more, then lower health , which are the high burst DPS characters.

[Furiant]

screw it, pointless argument. no delete button i guess Edited November 20, 2015 by Furiant

[tmwfte]

Running through Tat with Rokuss, I've realised that even beyond the period where he just shuts down and stands around doing nothing for a bit, even before that he seems to be a fairly selfish healer. He'll throw out one 132 heal (it's even less than the constant tick of 192-208 I get from my static barrier), then spend a fair amount of time healing himself, even when he's not taking damage. I think beyond the giant nerf, they messed up AI somewhere.

 

I also realized an added complication caused by the bodies not despawning at any sort of reasonable rate, visible character limit is taking a hit and CPU usage is spiking huge to compensate. I wouldn't be surprised if because of it that there are now people on lower end machines running into invisible enemies due to the sheer amount of information that is now on the screen.

[Zanriel]

Your level - 40-42

Roughly Average Item Rating - 75-80 (96 hilt)

Discipline - Vigilance Guardian

Companion - T7

Companion role - Heals, Damage and Tank (all tested)

Companion Influence level - 7

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) Alderaan level 34 heroic area (Killik Warrens)

Your personal experience while playing this content

 

Downtime between fights while T7 was in healing stance and a few deaths. About a 50/50 survival chance when T7 was in tank stance, and about a 30% survival chance with T7 in DPS stance.

 

Here's a video where I go over raw numbers like heals per second, damage per second, etc. I compare my performance with T7's performance.

 

 

I didn't always burn every defensive cooldown but there were a few times when I did. On one fight, if not for Heroic Moment I would have died. On another fight, if not for leveling during the fight, I would have died. I found it frustrating and annoying and overall the 4.0.2 patch has sapped a lot of my enthusiasm to play. I've canceled my subscription and I've been spending more time with other games like Fallout 4.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Zanriel