Companion Change Feedback

[Magnouss]

Please stop asking us to do your beta testing for you. It just shows your true disrespect for the savvy of your playerbase and your incompetence at releasing a completed patch. We already beta tested the early access week for you, wasn't that enough? You guys know full well what is up here. It would take one, that's 1, GM, designer, janitor, etc., at your business to complete one SF or +2 heroic to see that the companions were somewhat OP. At that time, a decision should of been made, in fact, I am sure it was... let it go to release and then watch the result. The result was a bait and switch to rival and perhaps surpass even the Great Cartell Slot Machine fiasco.

 

I was enjoying 4.0 even with the expected foibles. The story and follow up were fun and something completely different...I was that is, untill the nerf bat reared it's ugly head once more. It is not that I cannot do those things without OP companions. It is that I enjoyed doing it more WITH them.

 

Stop toying with us by giving us "busy" work while you try and decide a way to deal with this mess by putting it on us with your "test and list the grand fubar" requests. It's demeaning, time wasting and angers me greatly.

 

It does seem that they are just trying to calm all the furor by asking for this feedback.

[Neoforcer]

I'm a legendary player with 16 toons and every datacron except for fleet. My characters are all in pvp gear. Companions feel like their in a good place. Prior to this is was attacked by a tank with a comp healer in open world and could not kill the comp which is rediculous. I think healing in general is op in this game.

 

That is not a good measurement he was a tank that probably had guard if he was good on his come and guard is op in regs. With player healers I world pvp i tested the new patch i can kill any level 50 comp in under 2 sec that makes world pvp a challenge how. Two side of a coin on that one...

[nicholasdebono]

I have a question for the Developers.

First of all i wish to thank the developers for asking feedback.

 

Is the star fortress heroic required to finish the KOTFE story? (because with the solo mode, the star fortress is not destroyed and the mission log still lists 6 heroic star fortresses to be done, not to mention the alliance recruits, always comment that you need to destroy it.).

Or are we going to have some way to do them at least once (i.e. GSI droid or the Revan final battle) in the future?

I had the Ilum flashpoint sticking like a sore thumb in my mission logs for a long time until SOR came and with level 60, I could solo it. And oricon was a disappointment ending with an operation. SOR however was beatifully crafted and the story could be finished solo.

 

My character is trooper vanguard tactics at 65 with 220 main hand and 216s and 208s mix for the rest.

with all alliance specialists above level 10 and HK healer in the early 20s i tried the star fortress heroic pre 4.02 with the buff and all the boxes obtained, and in those rooms where you have to use the grapple hooks I had to give up, for a casual player like me, it was impossible then, let alone now. And still having 7 more alts waiting in line is not something I am loking forward to do a lot.

 

Post 4.02 Low level heroics both imperial and republic are doable but as the level of the planet increases any slightest mistake will usually result in defeat. The problem is however, the amount of fun a player has when playing the game, (as I do not think that the metrics can ever calculate the fun factor) and with 4.0 it was a lot of fun for me to play, but after 4.02, my fun level has gone down a lot. As the amount of heroics that has to be done for alliance influence is now simply taking too long and I get to be defeated a lot than i would like.

[Psicotic]

Sorry I flushed all my feedback this morning before work.

 

They don't need or want our feedback, remember they have "METRICS".

 

This is just a ploy to say they tried to get a response from the community.

 

You guys at bioware can go ahead and re-insert your heads back up your a.nu.ses because that's obviously where they belong.

 

Hey dont be soo rude they are working very hard posting and doing contest on twitter just 30 mins ago they anounce the name of a lucky winner from the earlier contest!!!! That gona fix this trouble and made many of us feel better.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Psicotic

[sainik]

Level: 65, Gear: 204 pvp, Discipline: Serenity Shadow, Companion: Akk Dog, influence lvl 30, Healing Role

Mission: Star Fortress Heroic

 

Was able to solo, though took a lot of resting between fights to wait for cooldowns to be up. Had to rearrange utilities just for the expected fights, which felt good. This particular content felt more challenging, which I appreciate, but at the same time all the other easier content (planet heroics, star fortress solo) has become more tedious and grindy. A balance would be good. Also wish there were better payout for micromanaging companion abilities, might make the other content feel more challenging.

[SGMRock]

Feedback,

 

Was it fun before? YES

 

Was it easy? Sure but it was still fun. A small nerf was in order not a nuclear one.

 

Should we fix all the companion bugs so they perform better without having to make them OP? YES, fix the tanks so they have a shield so shield block and absorption work. Fix the healers so they actually heal full time instead of standing around. Fix the tanks, DPS and healers so their stat levels of crit, power, alacrity, accuracy, shield, absorption and defense are equal to someone at least in 216 augmented gear or make those stats tie into the influence level. Right now a level 50 influence companions stat budget is so far below what a real player is I would rather have the option of putting my own damn armor on them again. A level 50 influence companion has 1/3 the stat budget approximately of a 216 armor set. How is a healer going to get through any content with a super crappy worse than 3.0 DPS companion, without it being a brain numbing horrible experience?

 

Could we still have fun and make it a challenge? Yes you could do about a 20-30% nerf instead of 75% and you could change the level sync so it makes you the same level as the enemies you are fighting. Instead of doing a H2 on Hoth as level 42 when your enemies are 37 why not make us level 37 too? or at least closer to 37. Thats part of why its so easy not just the companions.

[UltimateKrucible]

Dragging this thread back on topic (seriously - what is it with these forums?)

 

Your level: 65

Roughly Average Item Rating: 216

Discipline: Infiltration Shadow

Companion: Lana (inf 27) Veeroa (11) Koth (16)

Companion role: Lana healer/dps, Koth dps, Veeroa dps

Companion Influence level: Lana (inf 27) Veeroa (11) Koth (16)

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): All Tatooine heroics (Koth and Veeroa) Heroic Star Fortess (Lana)

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

 

For the planetary heroics, I barely noticed any change between pre 4.0 and afterwards (sub since launch). Fights take slightly longer but did not pose any significant challenge. I noticed that with Koth dps'ing I was able to one-shot weak enemies if I was striking alongside him in tandem. Strong-level posed no challenge while silver and gold required only a little extra effort than they would pre-4.0.

 

I previously detailed my experience of the Star Fortress Heroic, which I ran without buffs to get the achievement, in another thread. Summary follows:

 

So, like an idiot, I'd never got the One and Only title before the nerf, so had to do it the hard way. Not going to lie - was probably the hardest thing I've done solo in SWTOR - but it is doable! And it was amazing fun - a real challenge!

 

I solo'ed Voss.

 

I ran it with my Infiltration Shadow, wearing mostly 216 gear, with one 208 piece, Exemplar PvP relics and outlander 208 implants and earpiece. All augmented. Used 27 Inf Lana as healer, except for one fight.

 

The SF itself was no trouble - not even the Zakuul Knights, although the fights were longer than usual. I didn't run into real problems till the second last room at the generator stage, where the two elites and constantly spawning mobs took a long time to down and several deaths. Had to use Heroic moments and legacy abilities plus medpacks. But with stuns and a respec to get every last drop of AOE out of my single target burst class ( thank you, 25% dmg boost to whirling blow) I got through it.

 

Oddly, I changed to Treek (LvL 10 inf) healer for the final room, as someone suggested she was a better healer than the others. True or not, she got me through while Lana failed, although it might have just been I was lucky that time.

 

Boss fight took three goes, and I switched back to Lana as Treek wasn't working. Thankfully, the boss pauses to cast every so often, allowing me to keep my heals up. Again, Heroic moment, legacies and medpack had to be deployed. Beating him was a moment of pure punching-the-air jubilation, so thanks BW for giving me another golden gaming memory.

 

So there you go - it's still do-able. You need good gear and a strong companion, plus a good knowledge of your class abilities, but something this hard should be something you work towards - not given on a plate.

[Neoforcer]

Hey dont be soo rude they are working very hard posting and doing contest on twitter just 30 mins ago they anounce the name of a lucky winner from the earlier contest!!!! That gona fix this trouble and made many of us feel better.

 

That's the wave hands tactic were giving always stuff don't talk about comps let talk about what camps you like. Well i used to like lana now she is decoration at 50 rank since treek out heals her in a parse

[Unrealsaber]

I have a feeling this change was made due to easyness it was to solo HM star fortress before this patch and nothing more. If that's the case change the star fortress, make so we scale down in gear for HM star fortress and force every one to group for it. If that's what the intention for them to be a group thing. Edited November 20, 2015 by Unrealsaber

[RWScissors]

Feedback; account cancelled. You want testing, perhaps you should have run a test server. I'm not interested is paying to test on the live servers.

[Devrius]

A lot of people are bringing up LvL sync and I would like to point out that in GW2 (where they likely got the idea and used it to recycle old content and call it new) it works because the game was created with that in mind from the get go.

 

In GW2 you don't need a companion to complement your play style since you're self sustained, with your own heal and access to survival skills.

 

If LvL sync is to work properly in a game that was not designed for it, a few things will be needed:

- Check the companion AI, regardless of the nerf they, too often, just sit there and look at you die, dps when they should heal, break stuns and so on, check the code something is broken there... If they are to be our life line in content we can no longer over LvL they should be an anchor, not the weakest link in the chain.

- Have their stats be a portion of what a player at that lvl can reach in all blue armor/weapons, the current number is abysmal something anywhere from 75% to 90% of what a player could get seems like a decent idea.

- Decrease the threat they generate while healing, increase it when tanking and leave it as is when DPSing, since making them smarter is likely too difficult this seems like a good compromise.

[Neoforcer]

Feedback; account cancelled. You want testing, perhaps you should have run a test server. I'm not interested is paying to test on the live servers.

 

 

maybe eric should look at the metrics on how many people have said reason for canceling account companion nerf

[deutschesanfange]

I play a level 65 Jedi Sentinel with high gear stats and I find it harder to cope with heroics. I can do them but I continuously die which makes me very annoyed. As stated before by another player, our companions wander off and refuse to attack or heal, and by the time they decide to pitch in the battle is impossible to win. I think it was pretty stupid for the patch to reduce the effectiveness of our companions.

[Jadescythe]

Feedback; account cancelled. You want testing, perhaps you should have run a test server. I'm not interested is paying to test on the live servers.

 

No offense, but this comment makes absolutely zero sense to me. Why would you be willing to pay to play on a test server (essentially paying to NOT play the actual game and give feedback), but be angry when they ask for your feedback on the play you were already doing anyway?

[SamAnders]

No offense, but this comment makes absolutely zero sense to me. Why would you be willing to pay to play on a test server (essentially paying to NOT play the actual game and give feedback), but be angry when they ask for your feedback on the play you were already doing anyway?

 

Because he personally doesn't want to be used to test things?

[AshenK]

I play a PT and so far there's nothing wrong with this companion change. I have been doing the Heroic 2+ with other players and asking in general. Really I've found this change to be great as it's making more people social.

[Twortas]

Can we please get some communication, i mean besides this PR+deflector bull post?

 

Or should we just come back after thanks giving weekend to see if we've been blessed with a post

[Psicotic]

maybe eric should look at the metrics on how many people have said reason for canceling account companion nerf

 

I was thinking and this is a legal question not troll. How they can measure by metrics if most of the players enjoy the game like was before 4.0.2 and now? I mean thats a personal way to feel and think on every player as it shows on all the post around the forum. Because for me is hard to find a way to measure that with just numbers and i think thats a important part on any game.

[SamAnders]

Can we please get some communication, i mean besides this PR+deflector bull post?

 

Or should we just come back after thanks giving weekend to see if we've been blessed with a post

 

Haha, communication? Please.

[Costello]

Looking through the different experience, first thing that stands out is how the same classes keep popping up and second that there is a pattern between which classes are finding things easy and which are hard. Suggests far more to do with class balance and options available than the effect of the nerf on companions as a stand alone factor.

[Ursakar]

I think I will just repeat what a lot of people already said but I will still say.

 

I managed to solo most of the content, with the exception of soloing heroic SF. My gear is mostly 208, companions influence levels are 15-25.

 

So, the short answer to your questions is yes, you can still solo the content if you have some experience.

 

Was it fun, engaging as it was before? Let's just say that today I stopped playing an hour earlier than I usually do, which is bad, trust me. Gathering resources for the alliance became a drag. It is not yet irritating or annoying but it takes more time now and it's not fun anymore. At least for me.

 

Now, I'm not saying that you should fix it by returning it to the way it was before or that you should at least boost a little the companions in their current state. Because I know for certain that quite a lot of players enjoy the current state of companions to a point that they refuse to group up to do heroics 2+. They simply enjoy this challenge so much.

 

I already suggested it in other threads, that you should probably implement some sort of optional boost, like an additional skill or something. Those who want the challenging gameplay will not use it, and those who find the easier gameplay to be more fun will have an opportunity to enjoy game the way it was before the patch or close to it.

 

And in open world PvP areas this boost should simply have no effect, so it would not break the balance.

[MishaCantu]

•Your level 65

•Roughly Average Item Rating 216 except relics/ half augmented

•Discipline Sorcerer : Lightening spec

•Companion Xalek

•Companion role heals/tank

•Companion Influence level 42

•Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?) Hoth SF/ solo mode

 

Golds, silver and regular mobs were no issue with Xalek in heals. Took down Yona Zu Paladin with Xalek still in heals. When I got to Paladin Yoran Zarr, Xalek's healing could not keep up with the damage, even with Heroic moment and Unity active plus using a med pack and some self healing. Died twice then changed Xalek to tank and was able to down Yoran with Xalek at about 5% health. So, solo is doable, I will not venture into heroic sf however, with just me and a companion, even with the alliance buffs/toys.

 

I had played since beta and finally came back after being gone for 2 years just for this expansion. My days of doing super hard gaming is over and no longer interests me. I was, however, enjoying the story and even the grind of advancing my alliance. What I liked the most was the option of either grouping or not, it had great appeal.

KOTFE was touted as being story and companion driven, which I had for all of two weeks.

 

Yes, the companions were OP, incremental nerfs to get to the sweet spot was needed. But now, grinding for the alliance turn ins has become a tedious chore especially on some of the higher planets like Voss. I feel that Bioware advertised their product to get people re-subbed and then went back on what they promised to deliver. The story is the one exception, which I have found to be most engaging. I have even played through on a couple of alts to see if decisions really do matter, and was surprised to find that in some instances they really do.

 

But this extended grind just for the sake of grinding may be the deciding factor for me. That is why I left FFXIV after the Heavensward expansion. Like many others, I have neither the time or the inclination to stand and wait for cool downs and such just to do daily chores which should always be quick, if nothing else but to mask that they are indeed a chore.

[bluehufsa]

I don't like the companion change, it is not OK to struggle in a payed game when you want to relax and have fun.

[Leklor]

No offense, but this comment makes absolutely zero sense to me. Why would you be willing to pay to play on a test server (essentially paying to NOT play the actual game and give feedback), but be angry when they ask for your feedback on the play you were already doing anyway?

 

I think there is an implied second part to his sentence, that being "Nor am I interested in testing at all.". At least it's never implied that he'd be willing to pay to play on test servers.

[Kheldryn]

Please give us your feedback, and we simply ask you to be as constructive as possible. Include information such as:

Your level: 65

 

Roughly Average Item Rating: 208-216

 

Discipline: Shadow-Tank

 

Companion: "Deadeye" Leyta

 

Companion role: Healing

 

Companion Influence level: 12

 

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

 

Your personal experience while playing this content: Pre-Patch, Just fine, was enjoying the content. Loved finally having a companion that was not Treek that was able to keep me healed. Post-Patch all companions utterly worthless. Either die or come close enough to dying during most fights due to the companion not able to keep up with healing, Heroic Moment needed for most trash mobs resulting in having to wait for it to cool down before attempting another fight.

 

PS: Before people try to flame me, I know my class very well and have tanked for my guild without issue before this NERF, and it is a NERF. The game should be fun,which it was Pre-Patch. Do I think that the Comp's heals were a little OP, Honestly, maybe a little, scaling them back 10-30% would have been fair, but this is just stupid, they are more useless now than before KOTFE, which before the expansion the only viable healer was Treek.

 

Secondly Customer Service has gone into the toilet. 1 week ago my Subscription renewed, still no Cartel Coins, Out of my last 2 Cartel Coin purchases via Pay Pal (Both for 5300), I only got half of them. The Ticket I made for that was not only unanswered, but was deleted to cover up the mistake (I was however still billed for both, yeah, thanks). As such I have now canceled my subscription.