Companion Change Feedback

[Ajalina]

Because they can't account for how inherently bad so many players are at playing games these days and how unwilling they are to learn to get better or even attempt actual gameplay.

 

The curse of the modern day MMO, it brought people into games that have no interest in actually playing games. They just want a casual walk with some lighting effects, maybe a movie or 2 and some nice loot to reward them for said casual walk.

I think you will find it is the majority of those players you list there, who end paying the wages of gaming companies. The gross of money does not come from school kids or individuals out of work, having plenty of gaming time available, but little cash to spend. The money comes from people who have little time because they work to earn money, of which some they will invest in games they enjoy. I am in the fortunate position to actually have both available (if I trust a game, which I don't with Swtor for reasons beyond this nerf), but having both puts me in a very small bracket, and I feel with the gamers out there who juggle jobs, family, and still try have some fun while gaming.

 

My personal solution to the problem would be to create content for challenges which will reward special titles, those who conquer the challenges can display as proof, and rare cosmetic/mount/pet drops to only find in such challenges. Challenges should not be part of a daily grind for the average player. There should not be a 'L2P' involved beyond what someone with little time can effort.

 

Your 'curse of modern day MMO' makes the huge games we now see, the great graphics and extensive contents.. possible in the first place. If all those players you consider causing this curse, would walk away, not paying for games any more, you'd not have a game like Swtor in the first place.

[Devrius]

I would give feedback, but the idea that I'm Beta testing the game while being a sub just irks me to no end.

 

Too bad there isn't a test server where volunteers could, you know, test these sweeping changes *before* they went live.

 

But sadly the test server are mostly "exploit previews" since most of the time the people donating their time to test stuff are not listened to and whatever bug/exploit is found usually go live anyway.

 

Tell you what, next time you choose to change how the game plays, do it first on the test server and I'll gladly hop onto it if you promise you'll listen and do something depending on player feedback, that is if you have fixed this debacle before my sub runs out...

[Aricin]

I posted this in the other thread, but ill post this here as well

 

And a lot of people forget its NOT the hard core raider or pvp player or player with 16 toons legacy 50 that is the core audience and pays the bills. Its the casuals and the cartel store whales.

 

Even if you still think that this is all correct and everyone just need l2p you should be concerned how this whole situation was handled by the Dev Team. They tried to sneak through a sweeping change only to be caught out by data mining. After forum went ablaze they were forced to make a statement.

 

Then patch hits and forums really go up in flames and you got threads with hundreds and thousand + posts going up all over and silence for 2 days then. Then having the gall to ask for feedback ?!!?!?!?

 

For me, i was able to everything as i did before. i got tons of maxed & geared toons and 50 legacy. 4.02 made things more tedious. BUT (!) how BW handled is handling this made cancel my sub. I am not supporting this crap.

[Kiesu]

I posted this in the other thread, but ill post this here as well

 

And a lot of people forget its NOT the hard core raider or pvp player or player with 16 toons legacy 50 that is the core audience and pays the bills. Its the casuals and the cartel store whales.

 

Even if you still think that this is all correct and everyone just need l2p you should be concerned how this whole situation was handled by the Dev Team. They tried to sneak through a sweeping change only to be caught out by data mining. After forum went ablaze they were forced to make a statement.

 

Then patch hits and forums really go up in flames and you got threads with hundreds and thousand + posts going up all over and silence for 2 days then. Then having the gall to ask for feedback ?!!?!?!?

 

For me, i was able to everything as i did before. i got tons of maxed & geared toons and 50 legacy. 4.02 made things more tedious. BUT (!) how BW handled is handling this made cancel my sub. I am not supporting this crap.

They have given a lot of casual content to us since the release of kotfe- and no content for pvpers or raiders. I'm OK with having one part of the game turned atleast a LITTLE harder to feel like they care about people wanting harder content too..

Since, well, there is no real point in progressing trough the nims, again, when you aready did that on previous lvcap progressions.. You forget, not everyone is a casual either. I want a bone to gnaw on too.

 

Fine, buff companions for planet heroics or whatever, but leave H2+ Star Fortress as it is. It was actually fun for me after companion nerf and no buffs.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Kiesu

[DarthEnrique]

Damn Bioware do you not see how many people you have pissed off nerfing the comps! You *******es!

[Tan-Tilli]

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating 204 pvp, full augments, 208

Discipline Ops Conc.

Companion Lana

Companion role Heal

Companion Influence level 14

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) Planetary H2s

Your personal experience while playing this content:

 

Did some planetary H2s. Had no problems at all. Had the feeling that i could do them in the same timeframe, only some bosses (like Tyrant) i actually had to use some def skills.

 

I also did a Star Fortress Heroic with no buffs. Was it challenging? Not really. Some fight were tough but no real problem. Even the Boss fight was more or less easy. He did some hard hitting stuff, had to use the HM.

BUT:

From my poit of view the reactor rooms 2 and 3 with the adds were impossible to do without HM. My Ops has no AOE (thanks for removing Orbital) and its hard to fight 5+ mobs without it. Even in higher gear i think it´s near to impossible. I´m lucky to have finished my agent story to be able to use Orbital. By using Orbital with my HM it was no challange at all without it would have been impossible. Thats a problem for some classes or ACs that dont have the Orbital Heroic Moment.

 

Regarding the healing output:

 

I think the output is ok (could be a bit higher), but the cd´s the comps have are to long. I guess thats why they seem to stand around doing nothing or start to attack stuff. Like a human healer the should always have some skills ready to do the job.

[GhostRaven]

Eric, you ask for feedback, and what I see is appalling, when last night this thread had over 1400 replies and this morning its down to 1017, so you are moderating the thread and what... removing all the ones you feel isnt necessary,

Whats the deal? Bad form old boy .. bad form. No matter how you try justify the change, or remove threads because you feel its too revealing.. the point is paying customers are not happy with the product. I find the removal of threads disturbing

Edited November 20, 2015 by GhostRaven

[Ghisallo]

....which has always been the case since close to the time the game launched.

 

I would even contend that is the case in almost EVERY MMO. A problem that likely can not be solved easily. I would even argue they tried to solve it by making most content of that type instanced.

 

If I had to choose between providing a consistent game experience and making sure that mobs and objectives in open world heroics were available to all fairly I would choose the former.

However, that is not to say that there is no way to have both....you simply change the parameters of the mission requirements or make the needed components more plentiful/quicker respawn, etc.

 

The problem is this though. The entire reason for level sync is related to their plan for the expansion. They wanted the players to save the Galaxy from the threat of the Eternal Empire. For story purposes then you need to feel those weeklies are a challenge. (I have actually found it funny how people who on the one hand say story and immersion are "their thing" complain that they can't steam roll the content tbh.)

 

Perhaps more relevant for this discussion however is this. For design purposes lvl sync was required so people could not steam roll the content so BW's "average time to complete" metrics were met.. So here is the rub. If they just nerfed Companions because their OP state was allowing people to take what was supposed to be "medium" difficulty content and steam roll it, why would they not turn around and make level sync optional, which would accomplish the same task?

[DarthEnrique]

Eric, you ask for feedback, and what I see is appalling, when last night this thread had over 1400 replies and this morning its down to 1017, so you are moderating the thread and what... removing all the ones you feel isnt necessary,

Whats the deal? Bad form old boy .. bad form. No matter how you try justify the change, or remove threads because you feel its too revealing.. the point is paying customers are not happy with the product. I find the removal of threads disturbing

 

Agree!

[Melva]

Level: 65

Average item rating: 216 (SM Operation: 6/6 set bonus)

Discipline: Operative (Medicine)

Companion: Senya

Companion role: Tank

Companion influence level: 48

Mission: Star Fortress HEROIC (ungrouped)

Personal experience: I honestly noticed very little difference from my solo runs prior to the companion nerf. I was able to complete the content without dying and without much difficulty. Like my pre-nerf runs, I employed Heroic Moment liberally during the final series of fights against the Exarch. I did not notice Senya's survivability to be significantly different than it had been prior to the patch. Her agro did seem slightly better (fewer peels going after me, though there were still a couple.) I have not yet tried to recreate a One And Only run since the patch (I did it twice before the patch and definitely found it challenging, but doable.)

 

Level: 65

Average item rating: 192 (No set bonus)

Discipline: Mercenary (Arsenal)

Companion: HK-51

Role: DPS/Heals

Companion influence level: 40

Mission: Old planetary dailies (Black Hole, Section X, CZ-198, Oricon), Planetary HEROICs

Personal experience: Once I remembered to give HK a weapon so that he was actually healing me instead of trying (and failing) to punch my target, this was an utter faceroll. I was able to slaughter my way halfway to the final boss in Aurora Canon while waiting for a group member to arrive (I didn't know the final stage had been changed to only require 1 clicker.) I probably could have solo'd everything but the actual boss himself, and even that was only due to the rapidity with which he casts Siphon (Mercenary interrupts aren't fast enough to catch them all.)

Edited November 20, 2015 by Melva

[Chinane]

Keep in mind that in pretty much every major story event in the game the "story" is advanced by combat. The two are so tied together ((in this game)) that you really can't separate them.

 

Which is precisely why story focused players loved the OP companions.

[GhostRaven]

Has Bioware not learned from the big SOE mistake when the nerfed SWG .. they lost their player base and it became a painful memory.. please tell me Smedly isnt on your team ...

[Chinane]

Easy as above but had to kite like a crazy person on the Exarch.

 

You seem to have a notable misconception of 'easy', since you bring it up in the same context as 'kiting'.

 

Easy is when you can do something with a 2 year old sitting on your lap, requiring you to keep a vigilance against random interference with keyboard or mouse commands. 'Kite like crazy' does not fulfil that requirement.

[Ghisallo]

Eric, you ask for feedback, and what I see is appalling, when last night this thread had over 1400 replies and this morning its down to 1017, so you are moderating the thread and what... removing all the ones you feel isnt necessary,

Whats the deal? Bad form old boy .. bad form. No matter how you try justify the change, or remove threads because you feel its too revealing.. the point is paying customers are not happy with the product. I find the removal of threads disturbing

 

My guess is this. There were a few exchanges that I saw (I worked all night so was bored surfing the forums) which were quite literally little more than ad hominems back and forth... "your bad"... "who are you to call me bad" etc. at times it did derail the actual conversations with some substance about the issue at hand. We have how many other threads doing that? If this thread is about feed back, mutual name calling, and yes name calling BW simply creates a morass where it becomes difficult to find the posts that are actually trying to contribute.

 

I mean lets be serious, if he didn't want things to be too revealing I see on page one of the general forums...

"Good luck finding groups for heroics"

"Server populations dropping drastically since patch"

"A server for only us casuals" etc

 

If I was looking to find "revealing" information I would not go to a thread started by Eric asking for feedback with the requirements he put in the OP, I would look for threads started by other players who clearly have an opinion AND passion for the topic at hand, ESPECIALLY if that Mod started thread is over 100 pages long at this point. That is a lot of crap to wade through to find the "revealing" posts. Then again I am the kinda of person who thinks a feedback thread should be restricted to two things, feedback (sans pejoratives) directly to the company or players, respectively, discussing possible issues, solutions, compromises etc. "this sucks!!!" AND "this Rocks!!!!" (period with no other elucidation) , "your a damn elitist!!! no I'm not you're just lazy!!!!" stuff like I was reading over night has no place in a thread that is supposed to info. That stuff is for the threads we start

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Kiesu]

Which is precisely why story focused players loved the OP companions.

You can play a story-focused game and still want play on the highest difficulty level. Your argument is invalid. (Played all BW games on highest difficulty, didnt decrease my enjoyment in any way)

[Quraswren]

Eric, you ask for feedback, and what I see is appalling, when last night this thread had over 1400 replies and this morning its down to 1017, so you are moderating the thread and what... removing all the ones you feel isnt necessary,

Whats the deal? Bad form old boy .. bad form. No matter how you try justify the change, or remove threads because you feel its too revealing.. the point is paying customers are not happy with the product. I find the removal of threads disturbing

 

WOW, I didn't really catch that.

 

That is pretty disturbing given how hot the nerf problem is on it's on. Removing feedback posts in a thread asking for feedback. Thats a new low.

[Chinane]

Only a very few like hard challenges. Even bioware should learn that one day.

 

I'd go even further: even fewer like hard challenges and try to find those in a casual MMO like SW:TOR.

 

There are other games for people who like challenges, but I suppose said people wouldn't be on top of the food chain there.

[Burana]

• Your level - 65
  
• Roughly Average Item Rating - most items 208, three of 216 and one item 220 (tank gear)
  
• Discipline Jedi guardian (I swap between Vigilance and Defense for different situations)
  
• Companion - SCORPIO, Senya, Lana, Theron (except SF)
  
• Companion role - heal
  
• Companion Influence level - 18-20
  
• Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) - SF Heroic Solo mode
  
• Your personal experience while playing this content
   
  

 

Before the companion nerf I managed to complete SF Heroic alone, but I didn't get One and Only. Maybe, I got some buff by mistake or whatever the reason was.

After the nerf I couldn't complete it. I am stuck on the fight with the last group of mobs on Exarch before the final fight. The challenging call doesn't taunt all the mobs in the room and my healer companion gets aggro and stops healing me. My character dies every time. I used Heroic Moment and Unity, adsorb adrenals and medpacks, nothing helps.

 

Star Fortress Solo mode is doable without problems, but takes longer time to complete.

Heroic 2+ missions are doable, but take significantly longer time than before.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Burana

[Aricin]

Its ok. I am still waiting for all these posts by people that used to be free to play / preferred, but now that 4.02 hit decided to sub.

[Galentor]

Okay folks, here is my quick input after doing 2 dozen HC's with all companion roles:

 

- Healing nerf is too severe and could use a rebalance which i am sure Bioware WILL do after studying the metrics.

- Dps is okay

- Tanking is okay

 

For the first time since 4.0 i actually had to play my shadow and my guardian. Nothing hardcore, just some interrupts and a little CC. It was a nice change being the hero again instead of my companions sidekick.

 

Now, i see some people here stating that having to play their classes equals with grind. I don't know what to say other than that i am sorry and maybe direct them to some other games with the Star Wars logo. However, these games do as well require some attention and player input so.. tough luck for you people.

 

To the people about to cancel their accounts because of the companion nerf: i don't want to see you go but i do not think you came here to stay anyways.

[GhostRaven]

My guess is this. There were a few exchanges that I saw (I worked all night so was bored surfing the forums) which were quite literally little more than ad hominems back and forth... "your bad"... "who are you to call me bad" etc. at times it did derail the actual conversations with some substance about the issue at hand. We have how many other threads doing that? If this thread is about feed back, mutual name calling, and yes name calling BW simply creates a morass where it becomes difficult to find the posts that are actually trying to contribute.

 

I mean lets be serious, if he didn't want things to be too revealing I see on page one of the general forums...

"Good luck finding groups for heroics"

"Server populations dropping drastically since patch"

"A server for only us casuals" etc

 

If I was looking to find "revealing" information I would not go to a thread started by Eric asking for feedback with the requirements he put in the OP, I would look for threads started by other players who clearly have an opinion AND passion for the topic at hand, ESPECIALLY if that Mod started thread is over 100 pages long at this point. That is a lot of crap to wade through to find the "revealing" posts.

 

Granted - however - free speech and all... players should be able to express whatever information they deem relevant, useful or not .Hopefully the information will warrant merit . If anything it will show the concern and the personal explanation of happy or unhappy customers

[Sazztam]

Eric, you ask for feedback, and what I see is appalling, when last night this thread had over 1400 replies and this morning its down to 1017, so you are moderating the thread and what... removing all the ones you feel isnt necessary,

Whats the deal? Bad form old boy .. bad form. No matter how you try justify the change, or remove threads because you feel its too revealing.. the point is paying customers are not happy with the product. I find the removal of threads disturbing

 

This. Above everything else this is the reason why I cancelled my subscription. Ive posted my reasons elsewhere but if you want feedback Eric look no farther than your billing department. They will tell you an epic tale of trouble and woe. Treat your customers with respect and fairness, realize they are the reason you are here and cater to them. Radical, but it works.

[Wigetts]

I wonder if they are even reading these posts.

 

have not seen a reply, .. kind of get the feeling like speaking to my grandma on the phone. she said hello and then walked away, i have been talking for 10 min. at some point i just hang up.

 

[DarthEnrique]

My guess is this. There were a few exchanges that I saw (I worked all night so was bored surfing the forums) which were quite literally little more than ad hominems back and forth... "your bad"... "who are you to call me bad" etc. at times it did derail the actual conversations with some substance about the issue at hand. We have how many other threads doing that? If this thread is about feed back, mutual name calling, and yes name calling BW simply creates a morass where it becomes difficult to find the posts that are actually trying to contribute.

 

I mean lets be serious, if he didn't want things to be too revealing I see on page one of the general forums...

"Good luck finding groups for heroics"

"Server populations dropping drastically since patch"

"A server for only us casuals" etc

 

If I was looking to find "revealing" information I would not go to a thread started by Eric asking for feedback with the requirements he put in the OP, I would look for threads started by other players who clearly have an opinion AND passion for the topic at hand, ESPECIALLY if that Mod started thread is over 100 pages long at this point. That is a lot of crap to wade through to find the "revealing" posts.

 

Hey if Bioware doesn't want to be called names when they do things that piss people off, even my post giving a LOT of feedback I called them names because of the whole nerfing thing because this is one time too many where they screwed up where I'm concerned. Granted I have no complaints about the storylines I find them very interesting but glitches, server problems, requirement issues that cost me things I'd have liked to have gotten had they not had their requirements so bad to where it took me 4 years to find a computer to play it, an in game companion recruitment I didn't like and now the nerfing of the comps sometimes people get pushed to their limits especially when it starts effecting things they want to do in their game because Bioware made this mistake and then doesn't think about the consequences for it. It's their own fault for pissing people off..

Edited November 20, 2015 by DarthEnrique

[Ghisallo]

Granted - however - free speech and all... players should be able to express whatever information they deem relevant, useful or not .Hopefully the information will warrant merit . If anything it will show the concern and the personal explanation of happy or unhappy customers

 

The problem is though, from a purely legal aspect, there is no such thing as free speech on a privately owned forum which is what this is. Heck Most forums I am on would have locked down the "Poll" threads going on atm, and those are actually specifically discouraged in SWTOR's forum rules. They have actually been FAR LESS heavy handed with the moderation in this instance than I would have expected, from my experiences in other MMOs. While I have to say they screwed up and created this drama, I also have to give them kudos for how the mods have allowed players a more liberal hand than usual in terms of venting their feelings. I think they are just trying to keep one thread easy for them to read as possible tbh. If it spreads to other threads... yeah then I will raise an eyebrow

Edited November 20, 2015 by Ghisallo