Companion Change Feedback

[Geoffreys]

How is having a difficulty curve inconsistent? It's kind of a core principle of game design.

 

As people play a game, they tend to get better at the game. The difficulty of the game should increase relative to the anticipated increase in skill, so that the player remains engaged throughout.

 

Leveling Story & KotFE Story [Easy] -> Heroic Missions & Reg Star Fortress [Medium] -> Heroic Star Fortress [Hard]

 

is the same basic flow as you'd see in an old-school platformer game:

 

Stages 1-3 [Easy] -> Stages 4-6 [Medium] -> Stages 7 & 8 [Hard]

 

Your analogy makes sense. However, I think it leaves out a component unique to online play. That being endgame perpetuation. For my personal tastes, with a leveled character, endgame grind should lean toward the easy side (but not fully easy), with just a little wiggle room for microprogression.

 

The whole point of my character becoming powerful , was to have a sense of acomplishment, and to feel a sense of power in reference to the game world. Slow tedious fights don't afford that feeling. Its not a matter of the fights being hard, their just boring and tedious, leaving me with the feeling of "what was the point in leveling my character". At some point, there needs to be a sort of 'soft-win', in that my character feels at the top and is now pursuing lateral, not verticle progression.

 

That kind of feeling of long-term success will make for the postive feedback loops that keeps people playing endgame. otherwise, peole just get sick of it afterwhile. At that point, whats the point of leveling alts, when you're just going to end up with those characters, not feeling powerful as well.

 

Verticle progression comes from added content. Than, your charater goes through the cycle of getting powerful again.

 

It looks like to me that Bioware tried to artificially inflate content by making it longer and boring, to compensate for lack of content.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Geoffreys

[Vixzer]

First, thank you all for the hard work, I love the game

 

Your level: 65

 

Roughly Average Item Rating: I still have some 190 level upgrades/armors but most of them are at least 208)

 

Discipline Jedi Knight Sentinel and a Sith Warrior Marauder

Companion: Lana Beniko (mostly)

 

Companion role: mostly Damage but also Healing sometimes depending on the situation

 

Companion Influence level: 19095 (with Jedi Sentinel) and 14736 (with Sith Marauder) both have the Romance triggered ON

 

Which Mission or Star Fortress are you playing (Solo Mode? Heroic Mode?): I completed all chapters of the new expansion and so far I only did Solo Mode and Heroic 2+ on Nar Shaddaa and Belsavis (I think), I still have lots to do but I like what I see so far and need to fully upgrade my chars with all level 208+ to do the really hard mode

 

Your personal experience while playing this content:

 

First I want to tell that I play the new expansion since the release day for subs and since the patches I noted that the game-play is getting better and not worse as some players say (at least for me ).

 

Sure, some minor bugs are always there (companion stuttering on elevators , sometimes I get stuck in a wall or something , etc) but nothing that takes the fun in it for me so far.

 

Balanced challenge at the beginning, I think we could have a little more challenge at the beginning but for the majority of players I understand that would be a deterrent.

 

I am mostly a Solo player so I do a lot of missions and Heroics alone and they always provide a good challenge. Also, Heroic 4 is good if you are luck to get nice players (not talking about level or knowing how to play, that we can help them with), but if you get trolls is better to get out of the group and come back at a later time.

 

As a Solo player you really have to know how to work with different companions and use you abilities well, no way around it and that is one of the things I love about SWTOR (along with the story and companions of course).

 

About the companions - I like the changes so far, it is nice to have them able to act with 3 different purposes (attack, heal, tank) BUT.... their moves are too generic now and too powerful... and that spoiled the fun. I really always played with Kira and Jaesa or Vette so I did my healing, I think it is lazy to add 3 roles for everyone and make them awesome and too powerful for everyone.... too easy. See what I mean?

 

I really hope that they do not become even more impervious or all powerful (too powerful) because that would take away (more) part of the fun. I do hope the challenge curve will continue to get higher in some places (no need to be a grind-house mind you but a challenge is always good).

 

 

 

note: please let me kill Malavai Quinn (backstabber )

Edited November 23, 2015 by Vixzer

[Transcendent]

I tend to think if they had launched with companions that were stronger than they are now, but not as strong as 4.0 there would have been far less if any flack....but then I expect the flack would have been directed at level sync, which was a non-issue for the most part IMO after 4.0 but became an issue after 4.0.2.

 

And I expect it will likely be the next hot button issue. This problems only delayed the inevitable IMO.

 

To be fair, I think they went a little too far with the cookie cutter option with the companions, and they should all have stayed with specific roles (not a choice of 3). They could all then have had signature moves. Not having to gear them is fine.

 

I understand the reasoning behind the changes, while I do support those, there probably could have been a better way of implementing it. Perhaps have a primary role, with signature moves (and the full options that used to bring to the table) and then the "watered down" 4 move option if in a role the companion isn't intended to be.

 

So for example, HK would still have his Assassinate move as primarily a DPS companion, however when swapped to Tank or Healer, he gets the standard 4 moves. Or Mako would have all of her primary abilities as a healer (all of the original pre 4.0 moves), but when set to Tank or DPS she gets a standard 4 moves because it isn't a primary role.

 

At least that way each companion would still have something more than a random skin slapped onto a watered down GSI droid.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

Dear Bioware. I have a simple question. Couldn't you just give us an option to buff our companions to the level they were before 4.02 patch? When x12 xp started, you gave subscribers a way to remove it with an item from fleet vendor - maybe something similar would work in this situation? That way both Pro-Nerf and Pro-OP factions would be happy, I think.

 

If someone mention this earlier, I'm sorry, but with 196 pages it's really hard to read everything.

 

I'd be totally fine with something like this. I have a suggestion in my sig for something that could be used for such a system. Just give players the ability to adjust their presence. If people want easy mode let them set their presence at 2000 or whatever. If people want challenging let them set it to 0. Right now my accounts all have like ~1700 presence that I don't want and only makes the OP companion issue exponentially worse.

[RadPro]

Let the player decide!

 

Add a toggle to preferences that offers an option to select companion effectiveness.

 

Also add an indicator on the players frame that shows what preference was selected. This will allow groups to determine what setting they want and ability to see if group members are compliant.

Edited November 23, 2015 by RadPro

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

Let the player decide!

 

Add a toggle to preferences that offers an option to select companion effectiveness.

 

Also add an indicator on the players frame that shows what preference was selected. This will allow groups to determine what setting they want and ability to see if group members are compliant.

 

Agreed, please support!

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=853892&page=2

[RubyRiver]

Hi Eric!

Here is my tale:

My Sniper MM is, in my opinion, the belle of the brawl.

This bodacious babe is level 65 with an average gear rating of approximately 213 (186-220) and full 208 augs.

T7-01 cured the team until Her Treekness roled in likewise at the same rank of 50.

While the average heroic mission was dynamic in its trial, the Star Fortress proved to be much more challenging.

I attempted a single trek through the mission with very adverse results.

I appreciated the complexity of the Heroic as it reminded me of the difficulty of the original Heroics and Flash Points that I remember from years of yore (before Shadow of Revan).

But as I neared the exodus of the odyssey, Her Treekness failed in her duty against the Exarch.

Unable to maintain her vigilance, we succumbed to the sweet release of death at the 60th percentile.

 

It is not suggested that you read this reply.

[LordArtemis]

To be fair, I think they went a little too far with the cookie cutter option with the companions, and they should all have stayed with specific roles (not a choice of 3). They could all then have had signature moves. Not having to gear them is fine.

 

I understand the reasoning behind the changes, while I do support those, there probably could have been a better way of implementing it. Perhaps have a primary role, with signature moves (and the full options that used to bring to the table) and then the "watered down" 4 move option if in a role the companion isn't intended to be.

 

So for example, HK would still have his Assassinate move as primarily a DPS companion, however when swapped to Tank or Healer, he gets the standard 4 moves. Or Mako would have all of her primary abilities as a healer (all of the original pre 4.0 moves), but when set to Tank or DPS she gets a standard 4 moves because it isn't a primary role.

 

At least that way each companion would still have something more than a random skin slapped onto a watered down GSI droid.

 

See, there is a brilliant point IMO...if all companions had been programmed like the GSI droid we run with in Tacticals then I think this issue would be a non-starter.

 

I may be mistaken, but it appears to me like the GSI has all three roles rolled into one. It can heal you, heal itself, shield you, fight melee up close, ranged, and also tank.

 

If you really wanted to make companions generic, this may have been the way to go...remove the roles all together. Then it would have been far easier, IMO, to tweak each one for consistent performance if needed.

[Aricin]

Check Dev Tracker for official Post.

[foxxecho]

Check Dev Tracker for official Post.

^

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=856224

 

Edited November 23, 2015 by foxxecho

[teclado]

I know that I'm way late to the party and that my feedback at this point is probably moot, but here goes anyway. I had previously commented about the Oricon Heroic being almost as easy to solo as before, difficulty = low. I finally gave the heroic star fortress a try. I had never run this before.

 

Mission: Alderaan Heroic Star Fortress

Level and class: 65 Sorc

Gear rating: 216 ops drops (with 6 piece set bonus)

Companion: 13 Pierce in tank stance

 

I started off in lightning spec with Pierce tanking. It was rather easy up until the Exarch. The hardest part was actually figuring out what I was supposed to do at certain points. At one point, I was dealing with repeated spawns of adds. I kept thinking that surely this would be the last respawn, only to discover more and more and more. Eventually I figured out that I had to channel something on the exarch a few times and then activate a console. There were three of these rooms that I had to go through. The first two were not all that hard (no deaths). The third room was considerably more difficult for some reason. I kept dying while employing the same tactics used to clear the other two rooms. I think I died 4-5 times before I decided that I should try something else. I re-spec'd to heals and put Pierce in dps stance. I cleared the third room on my first try, although Pierce came super close to dying more than once. The hardest part was dealing with the channel while trying to keep Pierce and myself up while also avoiding that annoying target marker of death on the ground that followed me everywhere. Finally, I got to actually fight the boss. I re-spec'd to DoT spec Madness (for self heals) and cleared the boss with ease.

 

Overall, I would say that the difficulty level was not too bad. Sure, I died a few times even with optimized 216 ops gear, but my companion level was only 13 and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing - never run star fortress before, did not look at any guides, probably was doing some mechanics completely wrong. The rewards seemed pretty good. I got a legacy bound chest piece that looks pretty sweet. Considering the rewards, it only makes sense to me that the difficulty level should be high. Oh, and I even got a sweet walker mount.

 

Next time, I would run with a tank character such as my assassin or PT, but apparently you have to run through the 9 chapters to be able to run it. I've only done it on my sorc, and I don't really care to run through it again. Maybe I'll try madness spec for the whole thing next time, since I'm locked in on only that character.

 

I've been playing since launch, have one of everything to 60+, have played operations in SM and HM (only recently), ranked pvp since season 1, keybinder. So, I'm probably not a "casual" player. Perhaps the difficulty is a smidge high? I have no problems either way, I just think it should not be overly easy considering the reward level. I'm probably not going to run them 100 times like some people have - I'm just here for endgame pvp and ops, with maybe the occasional venture into extra-curricular stuff such as Star Fortress.

[caronome]

Your analogy makes sense. However, I think it leaves out a component unique to online play. That being endgame perpetuation. For my personal tastes, with a leveled character, endgame grind should lean toward the easy side (but not fully easy), with just a little wiggle room for microprogression.

 

The whole point of my character becoming powerful , was to have a sense of acomplishment, and to feel a sense of power in reference to the game world. Slow tedious fights don't afford that feeling. Its not a matter of the fights being hard, their just boring and tedious, leaving me with the feeling of "what was the point in leveling my character". At some point, there needs to be a sort of 'soft-win', in that my character feels at the top and is now pursuing lateral, not verticle progression.

 

That kind of feeling of long-term success will make for the postive feedback loops that keeps people playing endgame. otherwise, peole just get sick of it afterwhile. At that point, whats the point of leveling alts, when you're just going to end up with those characters, not feeling powerful as well.

 

Verticle progression comes from added content. Than, your charater goes through the cycle of getting powerful again.

 

It looks like to me that Bioware tried to artificially inflate content by making it longer and boring, to compensate for lack of content.

 

There are the game people who expect increasing challenge and the virtual world people who expect Masters to be more powerful than Padawans - i.e. you level & gear to make things easier.

 

Neither is wrong, just different views of MMOs

 

I would like to say that my experience in other MMOs, things quickly get easier. Raid bosses that took very skilled players 400 wipes to defeat are killed by very unskilled players at the end of the expansion due to gear. Daily NPCs that are a challenge when you hit max level with 590 greens are quite easy by the end of the expansion when you have purple 715 gear.

[Severitus]

I had initially put this post in the thread by the dev. But, seemed like feedback about the post was being redirected here, so here it is again:

 

One thing that seemed alluded to, but not specifically stated, will the requirements for the initial Star Fortress runs (to gain the alliance companions) be reduced to completing it in story/solo mode then?

 

Thank you for reconsidering the state companions have been in this past week or so. This changes seem more in line with what was expected after the initial explanation of the nerfs.

 

Also, I would suggest leaving the Star Fortresses as being labeled "heroic" but would change the planetary heroics to "weekly challenges (2+)" or something like that. It easily lets the players know that these particular quests should be more of a challenge than their normal questing experience, but not on the level of a "heroic" challenge.

 

I would also like to echo what others have stated, add the SFs to the group finder. As it is currently, more difficult content is available in that format, why not these? Not that I want to see this simply become a WOW clone, but that game (relatively) recently added in a feature that allows players to create (and list) their own groups for any type of content. So, players looking for help could create their own groups for world bosses, weekly quests, SFs, FPs, etc. and other players could search through these groups and find one that fits what they are doing and apply to join the group. It's worth considering.

[Damask_Rose]

Also, I would suggest leaving the Star Fortresses as being labeled "heroic" but would change the planetary heroics to "weekly challenges (2+)" or something like that. It easily lets the players know that these particular quests should be more of a challenge than their normal questing experience, but not on the level of a "heroic" challenge.

 

I would also like to echo what others have stated, add the SFs to the group finder. As it is currently, more difficult content is available in that format, why not these? Not that I want to see this simply become a WOW clone, but that game (relatively) recently added in a feature that allows players to create (and list) their own groups for any type of content. So, players looking for help could create their own groups for world bosses, weekly quests, SFs, FPs, etc. and other players could search through these groups and find one that fits what they are doing and apply to join the group. It's worth considering.

 

I agree on that. Leave SF alone and change the name of the planetary heroics, since they aren't heroic anymore.

 

I too would love to see Heroic SF added to group finder. (And the Macrobinocular & Seeker Droid heroics!)

[Katahn]

Speaking from the perspective of someone with a couple of healer characters I have some thoughts on companion tanking.

 

#1 - Level 65 Operative Healer

#2 - Low 30s Sorcerer Healer

 

In both cases the companions do reasonably well with damage mitigation, although it can be frustratingly streaky at times. At level 65 my operative healer is presently unable to do the level 65 heroic Star Fortresses because the combination of tank companion squishiness and low damage is a problem. Also as an operative I cannot readily switch the companion to DPS because for me to do any meaningful damage I need the backs of the mobs pointed at me and only a tank can achieve that.

 

Damage is frustratingly low and combats take a painfully long time to get done. I get it that damage as tanks cannot be seen as competitive with DPS mode, but right now I think it is probably a bit too low. My personal damage is terrible as a healer and my companion isn't so durable that I can just ignore them for the duration of the fight. My tank characters with healer companions can solo much more quickly than vice-versa, and that's in tank stance using tanking gear. I'd like to see the mirrored situation where my healer characters with tanking companions can solo at about the same rate.

 

Lastly the AOE threat on current tanks is problematic. Companion tanks are doing a terrible job keeping aggro off of me in combat and involves a lot of me manually refocusing them onto the new target. If damage were better that might be an acceptable tradeoff; I spend less time contributing laughable healer damage and more time managing the companion. My preference though would be for the companion tank to be better with AOE threat so I can simply alternate between healing them and stabbing something in the back.

[Nommaz]

Planetary weeklies could just be called heroics, remove the 2+, this should tell people that as heroics they are a little harder but can be soloed, maybe the harder ones that were 4+ could be still 2+

 

With the SF, on solo mode they are fine, on heroics I'd like to see some tuning on the final boss, however leave them as heroics and maybe add a 4+ as you intended for them to be done with 2 and companions, or just rename them entirely to tactical, I'd like to see them added to the group finder personally.

 

Thank you for listening to the player base (not just those here).

And whilst I am sure there will be a few that wont be happy I'd think there will be alot that are.

[XiamaraSimi]

Alright, redirected here, here are my concerns/suggestions.

 

Companions, AI needs looking into, especially on characters that before KOTFE, that werent healers.

 

■ Theron Shan has a nasty habit of just stopping healing. He will just stand there picking his nose and occasionally pew pew pewing mobs. He will be at full health so hes not stopping healing me to heal himself, and hes always within a few feet of me so its not a line of sight issue.

 

■ Akk Dog, same issues as Theron, except instead of pew pew pewing, he will run up and start gnawing on mobs.

 

□□Edit□□ Both Theron and Akk dog are Influence level 50

 

(I also run with Marr on another character and he does well, but I dont think he is a companion thats meant to be adventuring accross the galaxy )

 

I run Sin Tanks and Marauders so I always run with healer companions, no input on tank or dps companion effectivness.

 

My other issue is the "Story being important" rhetoric. If your going to make it so 6 companions are tied to the Star Fortress, you should at least do as another poster suggested and do it SoR style, one run through with GSI bot to let you "finish that chapter/unlock the companion" and then any other attempts for loot, achievements, and whatnot on the "Designation Previously Known as H2" are Group/Endgame Gearosaurus required.

Edited November 23, 2015 by XiamaraSimi

[Severitus]

(I also run with Marr on another character and he does well, but I dont think he is a companion thats meant to be adventuring accross the galaxy )

 

How do you run with Marr on any character? is it some weird combinations of previous story options? I've heard people alluding to this. But, I've never seen it do to story reasons.

[JourrnoRush]

How do you run with Marr on any character? is it some weird combinations of previous story options? I've heard people alluding to this. But, I've never seen it do to story reasons.

 

They don't continue the story in KotFE. That is the only way to get him and keep him currently.

[Christie_Swift]

If you are nerfing companions could you at least ENABLE them to wear better weapons and other gear? I have no allegiance to how it was pre 4.0 but just disappointed that a strong whining minority was able to change things around for SWTOR. Could care less either way since I'm still fairly new and seen what other MMOs do in similar situations. However, it would be optimal to get customizable gear so that way others can balance gameplay on their own rather than just neutralizing even usage of gear among companions.

[LinkOfKokuri]

Just curious, but what happened to the color of my sith? she was the brightest, deepest crimson red, and I was very happy, now my sith is lighter then a peach??? whats up with that? where did my color go? and why? I would like it back please.

[Lord_Sleepy]

Just curious, but what happened to the color of my sith? she was the brightest, deepest crimson red, and I was very happy, now my sith is lighter then a peach??? whats up with that? where did my color go? and why? I would like it back please.

 

maybe your sith just needs more time in the sun.

[Katahn]

maybe your sith just needs more time in the sun.

 

Or uncheck "show darkside corruption" on your character window.

[James_Mcturney]

CAN WE GET SOME PVP / CLASS BALANCE INSTEAD OF COMPANIONS ONLY?

 

You know, its been a while....

[XiamaraSimi]

How do you run with Marr on any character? is it some weird combinations of previous story options? I've heard people alluding to this. But, I've never seen it do to story reasons.

 

Well you see in Chapter 1 where you meet up with Marr and are supposed to go to the Main Engineering?

 

I never took him to Engineering (Click his name in my Sig to see where I took him instead )

Edited November 23, 2015 by XiamaraSimi