Companion Change Feedback

[Costello]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Its seems a lot of focus is being given to the companion issue, far more than many of the other aspects of the game which have a far greater impact.

 

Companions are weak, not great. But how much of the game does this stop people from playing. The Star Fortress on Heroic mode, you only have to complete it 6 times. After that solo or heroic is very similar and its a bad way to get crystals or gear or influence. Some heroics, unless you have a lot of free time it makes no difference, do the low level ones which are so much quicker and give the same reward and in many ways a better reward as the bonus can be done without even thinking giving good credits.

 

So lets say Companions are fixed, miracles happen and they can be geared again, people can then give them 224 gear and change their looks and stats to match the play style. There is much rejoicing; then people find they have completed the star fortress heroic 2 and rehashing it is boring. The high level heroics take too long and they are best of doing low level ones. Or find they have maxed out alliance influence and there is no reason to keep rehashing heroics.

 

Then everyone gets to flashpoints and operations and end game PvP. Of which there has been nothing new for a year. Perhaps if people are looking for group content they may be interested in it. Only now the crutch over powered companions offered is not there, they have to play with other players who expect a certain level of heal/tanking/dps.

 

So in a few weeks time will we see Flashpoints are too hard, Ops are too hard, PvP is too hard or there is nothing to do!

 

SWTOR is a theme park where thanks in a great part to fast travel and uninteresting worlds there isn't much outside of porting to a quest area killing, picking up or whatever x number of things then porting to the next. Only 4.0 only brought 12 hours or so of new content, much being dialogue that is bad the second time round when you find choices don't matter and tedious to the extreme after that. The amount of content is too low for the porting around the galaxy experience on offer.

 

The class balance is bad, look at the metrics how many classes are found at 1-65 and then how many of each class is found end game raiding or ranked pvp. Yet nothing is being done, take a moment or two to look at the classes in this thread and the ones finding star fortress easy before and after the nerf are the ones that have additional options to bring to the fight such as off healing or off tanking. Trying playing the different classes through the ops and see if some are always bottom of the dps/healing in every boss encounter. There are some classes that excel in every occasion and some that have to work harder to still contribute less.

 

If you fixed the classes, keep content coming the issue with the companions would be minor. I don't see a slight buff to companions as likely to bring people back as OK my companion can carry me through but for what? And has no impact on flashpoints, ops or pvp which is the end game content. So this part of the game will be ignored with anything done with companions.

[Lundli]

I'll wait until this gets patched before renewing my sub.

 

If my comps do not feel strong enough, especially as healers, I won't be coming back.

 

I hope I won't have to boost them to 50 for them to be useful again.

 

50 influence makes little difference.

Seems to me the main issue is the horribly bad AI, which makes them derp and stop healing and whatnot, and should have been fixed before they even considered nerfing healing which tbh masked the other issues.

Did they need nerfing? probably, but not as much as they did and they did it wrong!

Edited November 21, 2015 by Lundli

[Narsikus]

buffs for Companions

Anything short of 4.0 levels is too little, too late. You've lost my trust.

[PlacidDragon]

Anything short of 4.0 levels is too little, too late. You've lost my trust.

I *very much* doubt that they'll get buffed back to anywhere near their previous levels.

[-Spc]

Incoming 10% buff that doesn't really help very much!

Or maybe 5% just because it can be 5%.

[khonaan]

Anything short of 4.0 levels is too little, too late. You've lost my trust.

 

I definitely understand your point of view, as i have probably not been here as long as yourself.

on the compromise side of things, i am hopeful for a 60-90% of 4.0.0...

and altho 60% would not help my sweetheart while going afk to change diapers, kid spills and made a mess AFK...

it is more in the incremental shade of grey of trying to balance things...

 

i d rather would like them from that moment on stop trying to balance things, as we know, they wil be taking a vacation, when they get back to work on the next chapters, they should also start focusing on long standing game breaking bugs that have been plaguing the game and players. now im not talking about a wish list that people would like to see, im talking about stuff in the game that isnt working as intended.

 

And if they want to address challenge in the various levels of difficulty: solo mode/ tactical/ hard, let them tweak the boss AI and spell rotations...

[Achia]

Why, when I run trough the forums, I'can't found, the % of compagion nerfs HEAL/DAMAGE/TANK? Because, I only see " heal reducted, damage reducted, aggro increased".

[bigbobsr]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Thank you.

[DarthShadar]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

I'll just say it again, just put everything back to where it was, and just leave all the nerfs and all that strictly to the PvP side of things. We play this for the story, and to relax from the stresses of real life, not to get frustrated, cause even though companions in heal stance are pretty freaking stupid cause they stand there sometimes and do nothing, at least prior to this patch their heals made up for it.

 

This does not mean just fix whatever bug is wrong with them and leave the heal power as is, no the heal power is far too weak for all the health you have given us and the amount of damage that enemies do, especially in heroic Star Fortress some of the elites(mainly 1 saber Knights) and a few of the champions(the mini boss knights for achievement) hit for stupid amounts even if you are in 216-220 gear, as an example i could be 3-4 shot by one of the champion knights prior to this patch if i did not have my companion on healing or if it just derped out and stood there.

 

Since someone will ask, lvl 65 madness sorc mostly rating 216+.

 

I get that you want to balance the game, but you do not do that by hitting it with a wrecking ball and than beating it to death with a hammer.

Edited November 21, 2015 by DarthShadar

[parnormality]

Its seems a lot of focus is being given to the companion issue, far more than many of the other aspects of the game which have a far greater impact.

 

Companions are weak, not great. But how much of the game does this stop people from playing. The Star Fortress on Heroic mode, you only have to complete it 6 times. After that solo or heroic is very similar and its a bad way to get crystals or gear or influence. Some heroics, unless you have a lot of free time it makes no difference, do the low level ones which are so much quicker and give the same reward and in many ways a better reward as the bonus can be done without even thinking giving good credits.

 

So lets say Companions are fixed, miracles happen and they can be geared again, people can then give them 224 gear and change their looks and stats to match the play style. There is much rejoicing; then people find they have completed the star fortress heroic 2 and rehashing it is boring. The high level heroics take too long and they are best of doing low level ones. Or find they have maxed out alliance influence and there is no reason to keep rehashing heroics.

 

Then everyone gets to flashpoints and operations and end game PvP. Of which there has been nothing new for a year. Perhaps if people are looking for group content they may be interested in it. Only now the crutch over powered companions offered is not there, they have to play with other players who expect a certain level of heal/tanking/dps.

 

So in a few weeks time will we see Flashpoints are too hard, Ops are too hard, PvP is too hard or there is nothing to do!

 

SWTOR is a theme park where thanks in a great part to fast travel and uninteresting worlds there isn't much outside of porting to a quest area killing, picking up or whatever x number of things then porting to the next. Only 4.0 only brought 12 hours or so of new content, much being dialogue that is bad the second time round when you find choices don't matter and tedious to the extreme after that. The amount of content is too low for the porting around the galaxy experience on offer.

 

The class balance is bad, look at the metrics how many classes are found at 1-65 and then how many of each class is found end game raiding or ranked pvp. Yet nothing is being done, take a moment or two to look at the classes in this thread and the ones finding star fortress easy before and after the nerf are the ones that have additional options to bring to the fight such as off healing or off tanking. Trying playing the different classes through the ops and see if some are always bottom of the dps/healing in every boss encounter. There are some classes that excel in every occasion and some that have to work harder to still contribute less.

 

If you fixed the classes, keep content coming the issue with the companions would be minor. I don't see a slight buff to companions as likely to bring people back as OK my companion can carry me through but for what? And has no impact on flashpoints, ops or pvp which is the end game content. So this part of the game will be ignored with anything done with companions.

 

This

 

It is very pathetic how much attention this is being given. based on how easy it would of been to test it and fix it properly.

[Makillda]

I don't have any hardcore raid gear. I don't have a single set bonus. I didn't run more than one operation since 4.0 launched. I have augmented 208 CDC gear. I have a companion level 27. I have a simple rotation without any maximized DPS. I still call you out on the problem too. I can solo most of the heroics with ease and pretty quickly by just having a basic understanding of my class.

 

What you do is diminishing any opinion of someone with better gear than you as an elitist. You're always accusing them of being stuck up and taking away your fun by saying companions are fine, yet you completely disregard the possibility that some people, even people who aren't elite raiders like me, have fun the way it is.

 

Why is your stance on changing companions better than theirs? What makes your stance superior? You're always saying that companions need to be stronger and that's the end of it. Why not just get 208 gear and get better? It takes less than five hours and reading two pages, yet the game has to adapt to fit your desire. Guess what? You could also get better. But that would then place you in the "hardcore gamer" group you like to call out on their elitist attitude, right?

 

I can return the favour: Just get out of here, at least if you believe your opinion is worth more than some "elitist" opinion, when many casual players are saying that the companions are roughly around the right spot.

I love you and want to have your children.

[gabigool]

The problem is that you chose to make companion effectiveness scale with level, then had the better idea of making 50 levels. It's a good idea in theory, but not the type of change you can implement midstream.

[Sarfux]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

Eric! Thank you. Thank you for seeing that the companions need a buff! You way overnerfed them 4.0.2 and I'm so happy about the communication you are giving us. Great job. This is needed.

[Sorenia]

The problem is simple: Trash mobs in SWTOR are tedious. There are two main differences between SWTOR trash and other MMO trash.

 

1. SWTOR mobs damage a significant amount of your health bar every fight. Other MMO's you can go several fights before you need to heal. Most players just pop out a heal companion because stopping to rest is just irritating.

2. SWTOR mobs take too long to kill. Every pull is a group and AoE is worthless because certain mobs have too much HP. You never get to have the joy of killing a few spawns at once to clear faster. You feel like you're slogging through one champ mob after another.

 

So the OP companions were like a great bandaid that let me enjoy the game again. I don't care if they're rebuffed but combat isn't fun now. This expansion was the first time I played so much since release. Leveling new chars was finally something that didn't make me want to stab my own face.

 

Honestly I think the bandaid wasn't perfect but I don't really trust you guys to come up with a good solution. Probably using the companions as a bandaid is better than anything else you guys will do. Rebuff them or really put in the work to fix it.

[Makillda]

ya it is it has achievement for soloing it why would the devs do that i wonder because it group content?

 

Just because it has a solo achievement doesn't mean it is solo content or it's meant to be easy to solo. Just looking at the type of content the heroic SFs are (H2+) told me that the devs intended players to be well geared and not drool-on-the-kb incompetent at their class in order to solo it for the achievement. It was too easy pre-4.0.2 to get it. Right now, it's not impossible to get it if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do it. It actually feels like an achievement.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Makillda

[Peverder]

Sorry for posting none comp stuff but as this post is being monitered by the dev's um as of this post it is now almost impossible to do planet heroics with the corpse NOT DESPAWNING pls devs if u see this u might want to do something quick before ppl just give up on the new exp considering planet heroics r the main way to get the locked crates unless u want farm common crystals

[geschmonz]

Sorry for posting none comp stuff but as this post is being monitered by the dev's um as of this post it is now almost impossible to do planet heroics with the corpse NOT DESPAWNING pls devs if u see this u might want to do something quick before ppl just give up on the new exp considering planet heroics r the main way to get the locked crates unless u want farm common crystals

 

The devs are in their weekend now. Dont expect them to patch anything before next week, if.

 

Even if i think the companion buff just will be a placebo. It is impossible to free the devs from their bias to make their game "challenging".

[Makillda]

Sorry for posting none comp stuff but as this post is being monitered by the dev's um as of this post it is now almost impossible to do planet heroics with the corpse NOT DESPAWNING pls devs if u see this u might want to do something quick before ppl just give up on the new exp considering planet heroics r the main way to get the locked crates unless u want farm common crystals

 

It's not just people farming heroics having problems. My lowbie JK is on Alderan (sp?) right now and there are piles of Killiks everywhere. The ability lag is reaching critical stupid levels. I gave up in frustration.

[Canareth]

Just because it has a solo achievement doesn't mean it is solo content or it's meant to be easy to solo. Just looking at the type of content the heroic SFs are (H2+) told me that the devs intended players to be well geared and not drool-on-the-kb incompetent at their class in order to solo it for the achievement. It was too easy pre-4.0.2 to get it. Right now, it's not impossible to get it if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do it. It actually feels like an achievement.

 

Special snowflakes must have all achievements handed to them.

 

Seriously, complaining about Heroic SF being too hard to solo in entry gear or without Alliance equipment/buffs was the least valid of any remarks on this, even ahead of "I can actually die when leveling now." The leveling story is supposed to be easy (although not braindead). Solo SF Heroic is hard. Solo SF Heroic with no buffs is a pinnacle achievement that you can't get without overgearing the instance and being good.

 

ya it is it has achievement for soloing it why would the devs do that i wonder because it group content?

 

Ever looked at WoW's achievement system? There are lots of Hard Mode achievements, for solo, dungeon and raids. Some of these even for groups are very backwards ways of doing the fight and require being far more powerful (and competent) than it is tuned around. Hard achievements are optional goals.

 

Soloing a Heroic SF is a reasonably hard achievement by design. It's overtly not tuned to be cleared solo at a gear level where you benefit from the boss drops. A 190-200 character should stand absolutely no chance in attempting this, yet some people with that gear level were getting the ultimate achievement of not using buffs because of how overcharged the entry-level companion healers were. Proof it wasn't intended tuning is - besides the horrendous amounts of damage and healing required - that some classes could do it smoothly and some really struggled.

 

Just sweeping through it is not how this works and it's a waste of player and development time.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Canareth

[Galentor]

Hey folks,

 

First off, we want to thank all of you for your feedback about Companion balance following 4.0.2. As we go into the weekend, we wanted you to know that we have gone through this thread, the forums, Reddit, and social media to gather everyone’s perspectives. We have come out of this with quite a few action items that we are going to take, including buffs for Companions. On Monday, we are going to release a forum post highlighting our plans to address current Companion balance, along with the state of Heroic Missions and Star Fortress.

 

Thank you all once again for your feedback.

 

-eric

 

We do appreciate your input.

 

However, if i can offer a suggestion.. do not take into account solely what is happening on these boards. Make an in game survey as well regarding the players who actually play the game. I am on The Red Eclipse EU and over the past few days i played a lot both on Republic and Empire side. There is no ************ or whining going on, no self entitled prima donnas raging about account canceling and stuff. NOTHING in game resembles the **** storm going on here.

 

Sure, a handful of players complained about the healing nerf but other than people actually play and cope with the new situation. If they get stuck in a HC they ask for help and people respond. There is no drama, no hyperbole. Players in game are more annoyed about the various bugs and lag than the companion status. This was the general consensus when i asked the ~90 people on Hoth Rep. side last night.

 

With that being said, healer companions do need a good buff and tank ones a smaller one. Just do take into consideration the PLAYING population as well before deciding on these buffs.

[Justbee]

All my toons are level 65, mostly in 216 with a few using 208, all vendor bought.

 

Toons with higher defenses and/or good off-heals can cope in most things.

 

Static, low defense DPS (Marksman Sniper is my experience) are struggling with planetary heroics past level 40, companions cant heal fast enough, tanking isnt working right and dps is too low to blow mobs away in a dps race.

 

In addition, healing companions have been broken since 4.0. They stop healing mid fight, wander off, do a crossword, anything but heal. Before this patch, they would spark into life and burst heal me for 20K, so this poor coding on your part was covered by the powerful heals.

 

Now, after scratching their backsides, they decide to heal for about 6K instead, which doesnt make up for your poor AI coding and I die.

 

Why did you not fix actual bugs before the ridiculous 75% cut in healing power? How can a professional development team even attempt to balance something that is actually broken already and not working properly?

 

Above all, adding time to a long grind for alliance, which is all your changes do, simply makes the game not fun.

 

Well done in taking the fun out of a game. I'm sure it meets all your goals and metrics.

^

This!

[Justbee]

Eric! Thank you. Thank you for seeing that the companions need a buff! You way overnerfed them 4.0.2 and I'm so happy about the communication you are giving us. Great job. This is needed.

 

Seems a lot of ppl cancelled their subs, thats the only explanation of eaware moving that fast!

 

btw. can u fix dead body bug pls ? planets lag like hell now...

[Adaarye]

And so, once again, the cycle of nerf is closed again.

 

-Hey guys, some of the vocal minority is asking for a Nerf, although there are x3 times more people saying that they don't want a nerf at all.

-And? You know, the vocal minority is the vocal minority. And we don't need more than that to nerf stuff.

-Righ. Ok, so, how much this time?

-Well, bad players are performing too well. There are some casul players getting the "one for all" achievement!!!!!! and we cannot allow that.

-What? Unacceptable at all. 50% Nerf incomming.

-50%? Isn't that too much?

-Who cares!! We will justify it in two stages, you know. At first the nerf will be around 75%. And once that the riots start, we will say that we did our numbers and blah blah... 4 days later we will say that we take very seriously our beloved customers' opinions, and based on a feedback that nobody here will read, we will revert 25% of the nerf, so most of those raging players will think that they have won. Only a few will be aware that the real nerf has been of a huge 50%, but who cares?

-Evil!!! Mwahahahahahaha.. Mwahahahahahaha

I hear your frustration. I don't trust Bioware either, SWTOR division. The guys that run the SP games totally rock my socks though. I guess those guys are the only reason I am willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

 

The thing is though, don't sell us short. I think one of the biggest gripes here is the removal of the fun factor that came when that nerf hammer crashed down on our good time. I can't really speak for the casual majority, but IMHO, I'm pretty sure that if after the fix, the game is still grindy and tedious, a ton of casuals will be heading for the exit again. Most likely not looking back a second time.

 

They best get it right this time or kiss much $$$ buhbye.

[Neoforcer]

Just because it has a solo achievement doesn't mean it is solo content or it's meant to be easy to solo. Just looking at the type of content the heroic SFs are (H2+) told me that the devs intended players to be well geared and not drool-on-the-kb incompetent at their class in order to solo it for the achievement. It was too easy pre-4.0.2 to get it. Right now, it's not impossible to get it if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do it. It actually feels like an achievement.

 

 

It is both this mmo went solo a long time ago your companion counts a +2 any were is this game This game went solo a long long time ago if you think that this game is a True you must group MMO it not why because BW would never put in cheezements if that was the case. So some can solo it as it works both ways

[Shilenne]

Hmm. Doing Makeb quest line on my assassin with a rank 30 Treek as healer (I'm level 55, the quest is for 53-54 - the part where they're trying to stop the planet from blowing up).

 

Treek almost died from 6 normal mobs, not strong or elite. Even during the Rise of the Hutts expansion with the old companion system where they were pretty weak to begin with, my Malavin Quinn didn't take as much damage. This nerf is way over doing it lol. Did they literally take the companion healing output HP and stats and just decreased it by 75%?