Companion Change Feedback

[MillionsKNives]

• Your level: 65
  
• Roughly Average Item Rating: 200
  
• Discipline: Arsenal
  
• Companion: Senya
  
• Companion role: Healer
  
• Companion Influence level: 6
  
• Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): Heroic Star Fortress
  
• Your personal experience while playing this content:
  

 

I've recorded my two runs of Heroic Star Fortress since the patch, which both clock in at about an hour each.

 

So this is a little bit skewed because I was purposefully using low gear and companion to prove a point, but I do think my observations translate well with higher level gear and companions as well.

 

Overall, I think the healer companions were nerfed a bit too far. It feels like I'm getting a trickle of healing instead of anything substantial. This isn't so bad against trash groups but against the sustained damage of harder enemies and bosses they really don't keep up well with incoming damage, to you or themselves. For example, in the room where you end on story mode, when the two golds enter the room from either side, with a couple weaks as well. After beating the first gold and the two weaks, I re-CC'd the second gold to allow my companion to heal us up before we started fighting the second gold. If I didn't help, I would have been standing there relatively long just to get back up to full health, despite there being no incoming damage. Now, if we take that and look at how this plays out in the end rooms before the Exarch, even if you're able to survive some of the waves, they just slowly whittle you down since your companion can't restore your health before more come. Fighting Paladins has a similar problem where you take a lot of damage and your companion isn't able to heal a lot of that before you start taking more.

 

Improving the healing would also help lessen the downtime between harder groups of trash. Your companion would be able to heal you more on the go instead of needing to regen. I think overall the healing nerf was in a good direction, but just a little too far. I wouldn't want it returned to the old numbers, but brought up enough that it felt like my healer was contributing. It just feels too insubstantial now.

 

I think the changes also exposed a couple of other issues with the instance. One of which is that the Knights with the single lightsaber (basically Juggernauts) hit extremely hard. If I didn't do major kiting against them I would get hit for a ton of damage. This level of damage seems very excessive for what is only a gold enemy, especially when compared to the other types of gold knights in the instance. The Marauder and Assassin equivalent knights tickle in comparison.

 

The Paladin named Tress Parion does a massive amount of damage as well. She seems to hit a lot harder than other paladins. My first run through the place I was able to kill the first paladin with comparable ease, but Tress really gave me a run for my money. I even put on my 216/220 gear, augmented, and switched to a level 43 Lana and died incredibly quickly. She ate through my health in just a couple seconds. Since I was recording I decided to move on (and try to keep the video length down), but on my second run through the place I was able to get her down by the skin of my teeth. I think her damage could use scaling down to put her in line with some of the other paladins.

 

I also think that the second and especially the third terminal rooms right before the Exarch are made pretty difficult as well. In my opinion, you don't get enough of a break between waves of enemies as it is now. You start the fight and shortly into it the silver comes out, then the adds, then right after you kill them and maybe even get one gold down there is another silver and more adds. When doing those rooms I could barely loot the drops to do the mechanic before more adds were on top of me. It becomes a game of "can I spare a few seconds to channel this while being beat on, or will I die the moment I stop killing them?" If you combine that with the low healing I just eventually succumb to all of the incoming damage. Maybe that's intended, but I almost feel like a little bit more time between the waves would better allow someone to do the mechanic before getting swarmed again.

 

(An aside: the hitboxes for looting the skytrooper droids is awful, 90% of their body doesn't count when you try to mouse over them to loot. I spent very precious seconds in those rooms trying to click on the droids to loot them during combat and it wasn't fun)

 

Other than those particular things I thought the instance was difficult but manageable in its current state.

 

So in summary, while the instance is doable as solo, the healing companion healing just seems a little too insubstantial, and also a few of the enemies and sections seem to be unnecessary difficult in comparison to the rest of the instance.

Edited November 20, 2015 by MillionsKNives

[Talford]

Objective Feedback

 

Planetary 2+ Heroics

Pre-patch with a level 40~ Lightning Sith Inquisitor and a Level 15 Tank mode companion, these ranged from easy to challenging. It really depended upon the spawns. At the end of each fight I often found my companion with 50-90% HP and I would be in a similar shape.

 

Post-patch, same character. These ranged from challenging to impossible (again, depending on the spawns). I now used CC, but this limited my usage of AoE so I wouldn't break the CC. This often slowed down the fights and caused my companion and I to take substantially more damage. When doing a heroic we could complete, and we did survive the encounter I often found us both at around 25-50% HP.

 

Star Fortress 2+Heroics

Pre-patch with a 65 Sith Marauder wearing glowing crystal gear and a level ~30 healing companion these were fairly easy until the final boss. I found them to be pretty challenging, in fact until I got my companion to around 30 and replaced all my common crystal gear, I couldn't deal with the exarch at all.

 

Post-patch, same configuration, healing doesn't work. Literally. The companion either doesn't heal, or when she does it isn't for any appreciable amount. So, I switched her to tank. I had more success here, but struggled with the Paladins. The final boss was a giant wall of NO. After 10 failures I walked away and am considering unsubbing.

 

Subjective Feedback

I feel deceived. I thought BW had moved to a more solo/casual friendly style of gameplay. I thought these changes were intentional. Were the companions a little too strong in some areas? Sure. Do I feel a slight nerf would have been a good thing. Yes, probably. But I think the changes here are too severe. Especially to healing. I don't plan on spending another dime (I generally spend $100 on packs a month) until either BW figures this out or reverts the change or a portion of the changes.

[nicholaspapas]

So i am not going to list all the stuff everyone else has but i did make a video for you to watch this will show how easy or hard it is going to be up to deiced if this is how you want the game to be.

and since i forgot to show my gear lvl in the first video here it is in this one not best in slot but not bad either

Edited November 20, 2015 by nicholaspapas

[Simbr]

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating 208/216/220

Discipline Vigilance Guardian

Companion Senya

Companion role Healer

Companion Influence level 30

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

 

Your personal experience while playing this content

I completed all the heroic star fortresses solo with ease before the update but hadn't attempted to get the One and only title, because I found them a bit boring. After seeing all the complaints I attempted to get it after this patch and managed to achieve it first attempt without dying once. It was a lot harder though and I had to kite the boss, which felt a little stupid on a Jedi Guardian! I then tried it with another player and the buffs and it was fun but very easy,

 

A nerf was needed as companions were stronger than the players, but personally I think the nerf was a bit too much.

However going by your aims above, my experience is exactly as you have described.

[Neoforcer]

Huh, you'd figure by now with almost 120 pages and well over 24 hours we'd have heard something from Eric and team.

 

Guess not.

 

 

I said at the start this post by eric was lip service nothing more

[Costello]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 220

Discipline: Carnage

Companion: C2-N2 (the droid for the achievement)

Companion role: Healer

Companion Influence level: 20+

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): Heriocs a variety of them.

 

I fully acknowledge Carnage Spec is not the greatest and needs some work but as far as my spec goes I do raid on it (though I suspect the raid team would prefer a sorc or sin or any ranged dps or any dot spec )

 

My experience as much as I'd like to say differently was bad. I never died but my companion spent most the fights healing himself, he has high health, low defense and low heals. Which was kind of annoying for many fights. But where it got really bad is any fight where there is lots of AOE damage often centered on the mob I'm having to stand within 4 meters of. So the droid is taking damage and I can either run out and stop dpsing or take damage as well. Either choice the damage means the droid will be constantly healing himself, defense so low he can never catch up on his health. At least with my smuggler I can aoe the area burning them down from range which seems to work better cause when my idiot companion doesn't have to follow he does make an effort to heal me. Not to mention can roll out the way of aoe attacks and keep dpsing.

 

However I am not sure if any of it really matters as the terrible class balance for raids and pvp makes the end game painful unless you are playing cerrtain classes (I'm sure the metrics show which classes and disciplines do most the successful raiding in the game). As I can't see the point of grinding out heroics with your trusted companion at your side if your just a burden because of your class choice to the rest of your team when it comes to flashpoints/ops or PvP. Least with the current companion setup you can see you wont be enjoying end game rather than being propped up by an uber companion only to have it all fall apart when they are no longer there and your fellow PvPers asking you not to queue with them cause you are taking the space of someone whose class isn't a liability.

[Wigetts]

I said at the start this post by eric was lip service nothing more

 

Its looking more and more you where right. sad. ... not sure what they will do.

 

my guess is ignore , wait a week, see if the smoke clears and pretend it never happend...

[Justasmartazz]

My feedback is easily summed up with after being a paid sub for over 3 years, this morning I cancelled.

 

Time to start looking for something new.

[Shipwright]

I've always had hopes for this game and began playing shortly after launch.

With 4.0, I had worries for the game ( which I love want to see do well).

 

I'm fine with level sync, see benefits to it, I like it, I am used to it from GW2. 80 of the 83 people in the guild I belong to hated GW2 level sync and quit. They quit within days of learning that level sync was not an option in swtor. I tried to persuade them that it would be OK, but they simply have no interest whatsoever in it.

 

So, I got spooked. 80 people gone in a weeks time, as they learned of the change. They are not forum visitors generally. It took a little time for the news to spread.

 

4.0 hits, and I see a lot of people playing. I am relieved. it attracted a decent number of players. I generally enjoy what was done in 4.0; I 'm happy and got 3 new people to join.

 

4.0.2.comes.

 

I am the only person left in guild. The other guild members, which includes the guild master, said forget it. I had brought in 3 new people to the game and got them in guild. All, save for myself, are now gone.

 

I play less since I play other games more now. Why? My friends from swtor (with whom I play some other games) are all gone. 100% gone.

 

Now, I am really worried.

 

I cannot argue with them. When a healer companion does less healing than off heals from a dps character, I cannot tell them they are imagining things. I see it for myself. They hate, totally hate, what was done. They are gone for good. This, I know some will say, is good for the game. I cannot see it, personally.

 

They were not here to impress people with how awesome their gaming skills are. They were not here for some sort of competition. They were not here to justify their existence by slogging through tedious, miserable daily chores in a game ( that is what it became for them, a tedious chore). They were here for fun in a star wars environment. They did not do HM FPs or Ops. They did not do PVP. They had no interest in these things.

 

They did not ask for FPs or OPs be nerfed in difficulty. Whether they were ( to use the internet cool guy low-brow slang) "bads" or not is of no consequence. They played solo or with each other. They were not in anyone's group or warzone "ruining things" for anyone. And would be kicked at any rate if they were perceived to be so anyway.

 

Now they do not play at all. They don't pay anything into the game. The final few who left may still be subbed technically as their subs may still not have run out. But they are done and subs will not be renewed.

 

This is magically supposed to be beneficial to the game. While it will certainly bolster the egos of self styled "pro gamers", it diminishes the wallets at BW.

 

The game will likely survive, but who knows? Will it slowly decay and dry up? I'd like to see it thrive, not just survive. I think it's a very cool game. I'm perfectly willing to allow people to have easy fun. If I want things hard, there are Ops etc. It's no skin off my back to have people happy with a smooth daily experience in leveling and daily/weekly quests. This, apparently, is a heinous crime.

 

In the end , I simply do not see this as a positive thing. In particular, I find it baffling that healer companions doing less than off heals from a dps toon is considered "fine". I play healers in the game (with rare exception) so it is of little consequence to me, but the healing from companions is truly pathetic now. If they'd at least correct healing stance for companions, some damage could be undone here.

 

I doubt it will happen though, and I hate to see a game I love suffer for such absurd reasons. They deal is done, I do not see them changing it, and we'll have to live with whatever the fallout is.

 

You know, normally I'd be on swtor tonight. But, all my friends are in other games we play, and they need a healer. That, is where I will be. it does make me a bit sad. I will still come here for my stars wars "fix". But not nearly as much. None of my friends will, though.

[LordArtemis]

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.)

 

If that is truly the case Ghisallo then I would contend they have made a drastic error in judgement. The weeklies in the vanilla game should NOT pose even close to a challenge, period unless the player chooses to make them challenging....because they havent for the last three years.

 

It is pretty foolish, IMO, to reverse that so drastically. That is, very plainly, going to likely be VERY unhealthy for the game long term, and I would say that much should be obvious.

 

Obviously the new content could fall into that slot, and rightly so....even the content for Makeb/Oricon and on could be considered "challenge worthy"....but not vanilla planets. Frankly I would find that idea completely out of touch with the playerbase.

 

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?

 

Again, original vanilla planets are NOT content, can not be considered content, and can not be recycled to be content. They have been in existence and utilized for too long, and short of a complete redesign of the entire leveling experience you simply can not assign arbitrary difficulty to something that has been cake for years and expect the playerbase to swallow it.

 

I say if they nerfed companions to keep vanilla H2s challenging then I would contend this game is definitely on the wrong path...that is moving backwards.

 

I hope for their sake you are mistaken. Otherwise they are demonstrating a severe lack of competency with respect to game design IMO.

 

Note...I do not contend they should be easy for all. They should be easy for those folks that desire them to be so, those folks that have been doing them on easy mode for close to three years now. That is where the option to turn level sync off comes into play.

 

Otherwise it is a broad difficulty increase, which is frankly completely idiotic.

 

I would add, however, that perhaps moving up the max level one level MIGHT mitigate the changes and make the experience closer to pre 4.0 for the vanilla planets. Of course that would force that level of ease on everyone, which in turn is not fair to those players that seek a challenge.

 

Allowing level sync to be disabled is the best solution for all involved, short of reverting back to pre-4.0.

Edited November 20, 2015 by LordArtemis

[Vember]

This thread is a sham. Not one reply from BW.

[Stradlin]

SORC

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating A mixture of 220s, 216s and 208s, nothing augmented.

Discipline- Madness

Companion- Lana Beniko

Companion role- DPS

Companion Influence level- 26

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing:

Two manned Heroic Star Fortress with a good friend of mine, who plays a Sin Tank. Her companion was level 20 Senya. She has slightly better gear than I, nothing major. We did around five or six HC SF runs before companion healing got adjusted, now tried one (Voss) after companion healing got fixed.

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

Myself and one companion as DPS, my friend as tank, one companion as healer. We like to make things bit harder for us, so we chose to skip the different buffs you'd usually pick, including one at start.

Today was first time I was able to play the game after patch. After witnessing the nuclear meltdown about companions on forums, I fully expected lvl 20 companion of my friend would be unable to keep us haled. I was wrong. Majority of fights, inlcuding both Paladins and first boss fight, saw nothing significant happening to my friend's healthbar. Three encounters before final boss were very easy as well. Bit surprisingly, it was couple of smaller ambushes right before the three " encounter rooms" where my friend would take most damage. These ambushes marked the first time where I chose to drop DPS and spam heal my friend. I think she dropped around 40% at one point.

My friend (who remains a keyboard turner!D: ) and I are decent players, but reasonably casual. Neither does raiding, I have very little experience from Sorc DPS. As such, final boss fight saw us doing couple of critical errors. Neither of us called companion out of harms way and they'd both die. We got interrupts going but ended up interrupting wrong abilities I think, focusing on Boss self heal, as opposed to ravage. And, again, we did not have any of the usual SF buffs going at all. Result? Both of our companions died, as did the last boss.

 

TLDR/conclusion: Two man heroic run was no longer mindlessly easy, but neither would I ever call this " difficult" as such. It remains very forgiving, if you have the very basics of class and SF bosses figured out. We went in without any of the SF-exclusive buffs, last boss saw us have couple of very large, critical errors in execution. Yet, neither of us died at any point. Around 80% of fights there remain of difficulty where recent healing adjustment is not visible in any way.

[Zuperon]

Your level

65

 

Roughly Average Item Rating

208 all pieces aug'd 208

 

Discipline

Jedi Sentinel

 

Companion

Lara , SCORPIO

 

Companion role

heal, heal

 

Companion Influence level

26, 22

 

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

I played about 15 Her+2's

 

Your personal experience while playing this content

4.0.2 is a real downer, i'm a casual solo player and after the buzzy buzzy job and 2 daughters to take care off, i'm too tired to concentrate for hours on a heavy grind, i was enjoying myself a lot, super story and relax play with a good companion that could keep me standing in almost all occasions...except when i do something really stupid

I played a lot of online games the last 25 year...yeah i know i'm ancient... i must have played at least 20 MMORPG's, so i know the grind, it used to be way harder than current games, so if i wanted i could play some hard game and grind for weeks on end in the endgame to gain a level, that's the reason i play this game, no really hard grind, you can get high lvl solo, and...you had the choice, if you wanted hard play you could go PVP , OPS,...

But i must admit with the majority here that a little nerv would have been appropriate, sometimes it was way 2 easy....but i loved it anyway!!!

I was so looking forward to grind the Her+2's to get my gear up to 220 but now i don't see the end of it anymore, they are hard, long and even more boring than usual, i managed to beat 2/3 of them, some were ok but in others the first bunch i encounter massacred my companions in about 20 sec (while they are healing themselves...badly), and soon i follow them.

I'm not threatening to unsub...i have some patience, but i give the devs a month to get it right then i start looking for a new way to RELAX

[mcfardo]

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 216

Discipline: Sorc/madness

Companion: Lana Beniko

Companion role: Heals

Companion Influence level: 22

 

SF solo was stupid easy and I had lvl 208 with 192 relics and MH. The SF Heroic on Alderaan was somewhat difficult. The platforms were difficult but I got through it. The last boss was impossible because Lana got scragged, and I couldn't keep up with the damage. I am not even going to attempt it now, because its a colossal waste of time and almost impossible to get someone to do it with me. Planetary heroics were a breeze pre 4.0.2. They are a huge pain in the rear now, because of the thermal nuclear nerf bat to companions. The problem for me isn't the difficulty doing the planetary heroics. Its the inordinate amount of time that they take vs. the rewards ratio. A crappy alliance crate that drops some legacy gear (mostly bracers and crappy looking pieces, a level 6 companion reward-maybe,) and the small amount of comms isn't worth the time and effort they take now.

 

The elitist, apple polishing fanboys may like grinding away at that stuff but the overall player base doesn't. If the elitist, apple polishing fanboys want a challenge then they can do a HM op in item level 190 gear. Grinding out stuff like planetary heroics isn't fun. That's a quick and dirty type of thing. It's a real PITA! I used to play WoW. I stopped playing WoW, because grinding out dailies for little reward, and a lot of work. It felt like going to a 40 hour a week job that stunk. On top of that, the same elitist, apple polishing fanboys that troll the companion nerf posts were also the ones that played WoW and they along with the above mentioned stuff made the game a miserable experience. Bioware is going in that same direction IMHO.

 

SWTOR is supposed to be geared towards the casual player. Some people have responsibilities outside of the game and don't have the time to spend hours and hours grinding out content. They want to log on play, have fun and not have to spend hours upon hours doing content for little reward. The elitist, apple polishing, fanboys remind of the character from the South Park WoW episode. http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/southpark/images/0/05/Griefer.png/revision/latest?cb=20120211222858

 

I was enjoying building my alliance and I actually got some PVP gear together so I could get Pierce but now I do not see the point. The companions were fine as they were as far as I am concerned. This game has HM flashpoints, SM ops, HM and nightmare ops for those wanting a challenge. I do ops regularly, however the work to reward ratio in ops is proportional. I am fortunate that I am in guild that has people who are helpful, and not elitist L2P fanboys. The heroics and SF's heroics are not proportional when it comes to work vs. reward ratio as of 4.0.2. Nerfing them by 20% is acceptable but a 75% nerf is way beyond the pale. There is something for everyone to do in this game. Wait the casual players just have to take it on the chin now because of the companion nuke.

 

I know that the chuckle heads on PVP servers were whinging about the companions and I don't give a crap. Once again a very small minority of people have ruined it for everyone else. No one is keeping them on a PVP server. They can transfer their characters to a PVE server if it's too much for them to bear.

 

This nerf comes off like a vindictive nerf and that the dev's appear to have the attitude "this will show them." This needs to be fixed ASAP. The dev's took something really awesome, and then vomited all over it and it comes off like a badly implemented bait and switch. The dev's are making the same mistake that the dev's over at COH did when they nerfed PVP back in the day. That MMO went dark 3 years ago.

[Cassie_Storm]

The Paladin named Tress Parion does a massive amount of damage as well. She seems to hit a lot harder than other paladins. My first run through the place I was able to kill the first paladin with comparable ease, but Tress really gave me a run for my money. I even put on my 216/220 gear, augmented, and switched to a level 43 Lana and died incredibly quickly. She ate through my health in just a couple seconds. Since I was recording I decided to move on (and try to keep the video length down), but on my second run through the place I was able to get her down by the skin of my teeth. I think her damage could use scaling down to put her in line with some of the other paladins.

 

Tress Parion wouldn't happen to be a "warrior" (singe saber) type Paladin, would she? I noticed those types do way more damage than all the others in the instance. It was less noticeable before the companion changes because they could just heal through all the damage.

 

I ask because I wanted to test the changes myself and ran into Balan Karus in the Belsavis Star Fortress heroic. He killed me a few times. I decided to respec. to heals and put my companion in dps stance just to see what kind of damage he was doing. I took a screenshot of StarParse for giggles.

 

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l104/Cassie_Storm/TOR/SFParse_zpspijtg3vv.jpg~original

 

Its a LOT of damage in a relatively short (under two seconds in some cases) amount of time. His damage is all instant, so it's not like you can interrupt him. Kiting isn't exactly easy either when he's hitting you with so much damage.

 

In this instance it seems more like an overtuned enemy and less about the healing of the companions being too low.

[Aricin]

Why do people keep posting feedback?!? BW has access to all the damn metrics except 1 - is it fun?

 

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 ?!!?!?!?

 

I dont believe for 1 sec all of the peops that keep defending BW can stand there with straight face and say BW did not mishandle this and created a customer service shi*t storm that is causing them lost subs.

[Greymalkyn]

I tried three separate characters, one at level cap and two lower level, the following is my experiences.

 

65 Jedi Sentinel

(Avg. gear rating is 194, Concentration Sentinel, with a rank 11 Lana Healer, I don't remember the quest names)

I took a trip through several planets worth of Heroic missions and two solo mode Star Fortress runs. I encountered little problems with the low level world ones, but on Corellia I did actually have to make use of Saber Ward several times as well as Introspection after some fights. This was especially true with large packs of mobs. My health varied from full down to about half on several occasions. On the first Star Fortress, I actually did die once - my own fault - and I had to make use of defensive cool downs. Prior to Tuesday’s patch, I rarely saw my heath drop to 90% let alone to 50% and I had never died in a solo mode Star Fortress. I certainly don't mind the additional challenge here, it makes things more interesting.

 

I also decided that I should check out some lowbies as well, so I tried my a sage and a juggernaut and brought them to worlds close to the their level range, Balmorra and Alderaan respectively to do some Heroic missions. This did not go well.

 

40 Jedi Sage

(avg. gear rating is 84.4, Telekinetic Sage with a rank 7 Qyzen Tank, quest was "Acquired Tastes")

The Collacoids ate my poor sage and poor Qyzen faster than the last doughnut in a police station. Tanky Qyzen needed constantly shielded and healed and I still couldn’t keep him alive. He also could not keep threat on anything either, if I used any AOE, they all came after me… This could have been my fault too, but I didn't see anything that would have prevented the my tank from tanking. It's also frustrating in light of Musco sayings: “We increased the threat generated by tank companions, so they should be able to hold the attention of enemy NPCs better than before.”

I could try again with a healer rather than a tank.

 

35 Sith Juggernaut

(avg. gear rating is 73.5, Rage Juggernaut with a rank 6 Vette Healer, I don't remember the quests)

My Juggernaut fared better, as long as I took things slow. However miss pulls or not seeing a wandering mob soon enough lead to the mobs playing whack a Sith with little I could do to stay up.. Vette’s healing simply wasn’t enough to keep me up. Just to compare, I took my Juggernaut back to Dromund Kaas to do the Heroics there. And as I expected, despite the level sync, the lower level content was noticeably easier.

 

Previously, neither my Sage nor Juggernaut had struggled, in any fashion with similar Heroic Missions. My Sage was kind of squishy, but I've played light armor caster types in other games, so I'm used to the "glass cannon" feel

 

I know that I am certainly not the best player that SWTOR has ever known, but I'm hardly the worst. I know if I keep trying I can probably make things work. I also could simply group up with people to complete these missions. Further, I am aware that at lower levels the rewards from the Heroic 2 missions are are level appropriate for the character, not the world, so I can go back and do easier ones if I want.

 

I also want to echo what a poster on page one said about the companions seeming to do other actions except heal despite being set as a healer. This is weird and does seem to let you get too far down in health before the start healing again.

 

I understand and even agree that companions needed to be knocked down a peg. I felt that the extreme healing out of companions really undermined the threat of certain enemies, namely Arcann. I felt the fights with him were very easy fight and that felt very weird next to how he is portrayed in the story. That said, I think BW went too far... and instead of using a nerf bat BW seems to have ended up using the nerf daisy cutter.

 

I hope BW takes these experiences seriously and makes the appropriate changes.

[AngFour]

I just had a horrible thought:

 

If as many people are leaving as they claim (and for the sake of this argument, say they all do/did) all this will prove to EA and Bioware is that KotFE was a failure and they will ash can the story after Season One ends. That's really going to suck because now, story wise, I'll never know what happened to a lot of my favorite companions (if they aren't slated to show up in Season One). As someone who enjoys this game for the story and as someone who is very invested in my companions, this thought makes me unbelievably sad. Like "Firefly got cancelled" sad, except Firefly, at least, got a movie to wrap things up. KotFE probably won't (ETA: have any sort of wrap up. Not thinking KotFE would get a movie to wrap things up. Needed to clarify that.).

 

Edited November 20, 2015 by AngFour

[YankeeDelta]

I don't understand. If the 4.2 changes were based on Bioware's metrics, then why the need for any information whatsoever from the playerbase?

 

Shouldn't your internal metrics detail the exact difficulty of every Heroic in the game? With breakdowns by class & specialization and some sort of +- by influence and gear?

 

If your metrics didn't detail this precise info... then what exactly did you base your companion nerf on?

[Irongut]

Character: Jug Tank

Level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: mostly 208 com gear with 186 relics + hilt

Companion: Pierce

Companion role: DPS

Companion Influence level: 18

 

Not had much time to play since the patch but I have played the Voss and Hoth Heroics (solo) and a couple of solo non-heroic Star Fortresses. All were slightly more difficult than in 4.0 but still very easy. I had to pop the occasional DCD during some heroic boss fights and when chain pulling in Star Fortress but that was it. The main difference was stopping to heal after every other pull, before the patch I could run an entire heroic without stoping to heal in 4.0.

 

Edit: Just wanted to add I used to run the Voss Heroics solo on this character at level 55 for the rep trophies. With level sync and the current companions they are still much easier and take about half the time they did then.

 

---

 

Character: Sharpshooter Gunslinger

Level: 61

Roughly Average Item Rating: 192 with 186 relics + two 198 pieces

Companion: any

Companion role: DPS

Companion Influence level: 10

 

The KotFE content is still the walk in the park it was at launch for my jug. Boringly easy.

 

---

 

For the content I have played I would say the difficulty level is:

KotFE Chapters – Challenge Level: Very Low

[Heroic 2] Missions – Challenge Level: Very Low

Star Fortress – Challenge Level: Low

 

Admitedly I have played both of these characters for a very long time and they are my mains. However my focus has been elsewhere for the last 6 months, I am rusty and I haven't kept up with the 4.0 changes.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Irongut

[bhedrick]

My character: Level 65 Jedi Knight Vigilance Guardian in mix of 208/216 gear w/ 186 augments.

 

My companion: Influence level 30 Lana in healer role

 

My experience: Prior to 4.0.2 I was able to solo Heroic 2 missions and Heroic Star Fortress rather easily. Probably a touch on the too easy side. However, I will echo comments that Lana was only a usable healer because of her burst. Too often she is trying to DPS even in healer mode, and this was only overcome pre-4.0.2. because she had excellent burst.

 

Post 4.0.2 : Heroic 2 missions are noticeably more difficult, but still quite doable. However, I agree with other comments that there is way too much variance in the difficulty levels of any given Heroic 2.

 

I am still able to complete Heroic Star Fortress, although now it requires a handful of deaths. Particularly, the Ephemeris room and the third reactor station feel way overtuned. With specific regard to companions, Lana spends way too much time DPS'ing during intense encounters like this. EDIT: I'll add that I tried switching her to tank stance for some of the harder fights. That . . . did not go well.

 

What seems odd, it that the Exarchs themselves feel relatively easy compared to those two encounters. Its probably not good design for the final boss to not be the most difficult encounter.

 

Long story short, before 4.0.2 is was a little on the easy side but fun. Post 4.0.2 it seems to be hitting your identified difficulty targets, but its not fun. As others have said, you have made the end game for solo players tedious.

 

Its really quite discouraging for me personally, as a primarily solo player, in that I thought you had finally provided an end-game alternative to operations. Yes, the Alliance system and related Heroics were a little grindy, but it was fun to power through them. Heroic Star Fortress was not too hard, but still had some mechanics you could not ignore if you wanted to finish it. I think its okay to occasionally include mechanics you have to pay attention to in solo PVE, but that quickly becomes tedium if overtuned. As it stands now, I don't intend to run Heroic Star Fortress in its current incarnation, and I probably won't spend as much time leveling up my Alliance since the Heroic 2's are more tedious.

 

In my opinion, the difficulty challenges you seek to impose should be reserved for Hard Mode Flashpoints, Hard Mode Operations, PvP, and Achievement Hunters. Its probably misguided to impose this level of challenge on anything related to solo PVE. I think its unfortunate that several allies are now gated behind a Heroic Star Fortress that is doable but no longer fun.

 

Finally, on a somewhat related noted, I really wish Story Mode operations would start to live up to that name (i.e a way for casual/unguilded/solo players to see all the "story"). I really think they should be PUG-able, and while some are, most are not. It would be nice as a solo player to queue up in the OP's finder and be able to see these operations and slowly earn some 216 set pieces. I tried a few random story modes, they are generally not puggable. Again, I think the challenge (Hard Modes) should be there for those who are looking for it, with requisite greater rewards (220/224). However, I think solo PVE'ers should be able to see all the content and have alternate ways to keep progressing their characters. I know the argument is "why do you need better gear if you don't do ops?" The answer is easy: progression is an end unto itself and progression is core to any RPG.

Edited November 20, 2015 by bhedrick

[DarthEnrique]

I just had a horrible thought:

 

If as many people are leaving as they claim (and for the sake of this argument, say they all do/did) all this will prove to EA and Bioware is that KotFE was a failure and they will ash can the story after Season One ends. That's really going to suck because now, story wise, I'll never know what happened to a lot of my favorite companions (if they aren't slated to show up in Season One). As someone who enjoys this game for the story and as someone who is very invested in my companions, this thought makes me unbelievably sad. Like "Firefly got cancelled" sad, except Firefly, at least, got a movie to wrap things up. KotFE probably won't (ETA: have any sort of wrap up. Not thinking KotFE would get a movie to wrap things up. Needed to clarify that.).

 

You better hope this gets back to Bioware then...

[Joefjr]

Tank companions need a MAJOR boost to threat, yes it was increased with the patch but was their major dps nerf taken into account? I'm pulling threat off my Tank role companion all the time and I'm a DPS spec. Tank role comps also melt like butter, they are taking a LOT more damage now than they did before.

[Thompsons]

True story:

 

Expansion came out. Went through KotFE. Was doing a hero mission with my main. Senya was the companion, with somewhere in the mid-20s in influence.

 

Was approaching a mob when the phone rang. Answered the phone and, out of curiosity, ordered Senya to attack. I chat on the phone, never touching the keyboard again.

 

She wiped out the whole mob in minutes -- in healer stance.

 

There is no debate that a companion nerf was needed. The only debate was how much and — not bragging, just being candid — I still haven't had an 61ish alt with an anemic companion die in a hero mob fight yet. Granted, I'm not leveling up any low-level alts, but if I were I'd be sticking to class missions anyway.

[Neoforcer]

Its looking more and more you where right. sad. ... not sure what they will do.

 

my guess is ignore , wait a week, see if the smoke clears and pretend it never happend...

 

They already had feedback in the big thread with over 70k views what this is is a attempt at stalling to se if people adjust waht there getting is unsubbing and people not logging on so thye better do some thing real quick like as i do not want to sit in pvp ques because every one left the game and the 25% hard core players that seem to think 65 metric only mater. There is other aspect of this game people are having trouble with other then just h2s and star fortress as every post saying it is fine starts out with

 

Your level 65

Roughly Average Item Rating 216/220 gear auged

Discipline sin - deception

Companion lana

Companion role Heal

Companion Influence level 50

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

Your personal experience while playing this content:

 

To easy to easy yada yada make it harder all around nerf more plox. This game is boring my eliteness self and i need more challenge to feel like i did some thing other then play video game because i can sit here 12 hours out of the day and play a video game.

 

What these people don't realize is this game is not only about there special snowflake game play.... IT is a game for more then just elitist and hard core players it is a casual game and BW with this nerf took that away from a large group. That i happen to care about for game health and longevity. Is this going to stomp me from playing no i am a pvper is this going to cut into my challenge yes. why becasue people i come across in the world are sitting ducks even with heroic moments witha comp because they are week. I want a challenge to world pvp when i attack a flagged player not a comp that dpses me while trying to heal and dies in 3 hots them it is on to the player with me having no comp out cuz i am leet like that. SO has this cut into my fun yes and i don't do pve other then to level to cap..