Companion Balance Changes

[_NovaBlast_]

Because 1) its an MMO, not a single player rpg 2) they put more time, effort and preperation into doing that content so is logical and right to give them greater rewards.

 

 

 

Whats does epeen have anything to do with greater rewards for harder content? and especially mine?

 

 

 

Then that is your choice, but you shouldn't be expected to be given equal rewards for taking the easy and quick option. Its not elitism, its how MMO's work. Do what you enjoy, don't start begrudging people things that you don't want to put the effort in to get.

 

 

 

tbf, its hard to see why you can't understand the concept of high risk, greater reward.

 

 

LOL this is a "MMO" you just lost all credibility there ...... "MMO" is not a TYPE of game its an ENVIRONMENT. LOL

 

RPG , Moba, FPS, RTS are types of games

 

As long as more than one person can connect to the same environment at the same time its a MMO regardless of the content. meaning a MMO does not REQUIRE group or PVP content to be considered a "MMO"

 

You could have a completely solo able game and it would still be a "MMO"

 

 

2. it has everything to do with it ....why do you NEED better rewards than others for doing something you enjoy?

 

 

3 agin your still repeating the same content you sound like a broken record.... see answer 1 and 2

 

4 you are so blind again see answer 2.

[DarthEnrique]

You have it 100% wrong.

People didn't do heroics unless 1) They wanted the story. 2) Did it overleveled for achievements.

Kotfe drops and now they are required to level up the alliance. But they didn't want people to faceroll through them, so level sync came out and companion nerf happened after 4.0.

 

Its still fun to a lot of players, but its not Penguin Club anymore. Adapt or move on.

I find your lack of reading disturbing... If you look here this statement by Michael completely supports what you knocked.

 

 

Emergent Gameplay

[Heroic 2]s. Before Knights of the Fallen Empire, Heroics were not very utilized content. Most players ignored them after doing them once. So when we highlighted areas of improvement for our leveling experience, we knew we wanted to make Heroics sexier. We wanted players to have good reason to go do them, but also give players a reason to join up with their friends. What we failed to realize was how much most of you would enjoy them, but also how frequently you would engage in them. [Heroic 2]s were initially meant to be challenging content for what we would say is an “average” player. If you had good gear and really knew how to play well, you could solo them but you’d still have to pay attention to what you were doing. If you had expected gear for your level and didn’t think of yourself as that skilled, you’d probably find a friend to join you so you could both reap the rewards together.

 

With Companions being the power level they were, “everyone” began enjoying them. And that was the point that we hadn’t realized. By reducing Companion power, we took that away from a lot of you. You could still engage in [Heroic 2]s and beat them, but they had become arduous, even grindy to many players.

 

Our misstep was in not realizing that our goals we had set no longer fit with the game all of you were enjoying. The emergent gameplay that was created didn’t fit what we had embraced as our mandate within the Design Team.

 

Going Forward

So, what does that mean going forward? We will be increasing the power level of Companions. And while they won’t be as powerful as they were when Fallen Empire launched, the increase will be significant. I have gotten together with the Design Leads and we have re-discussed our goals for combat and content difficulty. We want players to enjoy [Heroic 2]s and level up their Alliance. You can find the exact changes coming in tomorrow’s patch, below. And I assure you, we will continue to carefully watch how content is being enjoyed and adapt as necessary.

• Companion healing has been increased by roughly 48%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  
• Companion damage has been increased by roughly 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  
• Companion base stats have been increased by about 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)

(click the spoiler tag for specifics)

 

 

• Companion channel heal power increased by 61%
  
• Companion single target heal power increased by 42%
  
• Companion single target heal over time power increased by 43%
  
• Companion base stats increased by 15%
  
• edit, removed note about damage increase, it is redundant with stat increase above

 

Star Fortresses

Which leads me to Star Fortresses. We are going to treat Star Fortresses as a different topic from Companion balance. The initial difficulty level for Star Fortresses are clearly story content, meaning, we expect all of you to take part and enjoy them while earning new Contacts. This hasn’t changed. The difficult mode for Star Fortresses, though, we feel is a challenge that players should aspire to achieve, and not something players should easily do without gearing up their character and increasing their Companion’s Influence level. We obviously set an expectation Heroic Star Fortresses were going to be similar to [Heroic 2] content, but that was not our intention. As a result, we are going to change the “Heroic” nomenclature for Star Fortresses to something different. We’ll let you know what we decide the new name will be soon. In addition, this will allow us to balance Star Fortresses independently of Companion power, but still make it challenging without making it impossible for many players.

 

So, in conclusion, or the tl;dr for the internet savvy:

• We will be increasing Companion power. It will not be as powerful as before, but the changes will be significant.
  
• Heroic Star Fortresses will get a new moniker to denote that it’s a different type of challenge. And we will balance Star Fortresses independently of both Companion power and [Heroic 2]s to ensure they are tuned appropriately.

 

Thank you for reading and we look forward to more of your feedback as these changes go live.

 

May the Force be with you,

Michael Backus

Lead Designer

 

This right here shows the miscalculation on Bioware's part. They wanted people to do [Heroic 2+]s but did not realize that prior to nerfing the companions more people were doing the [Heroic 2+]s because of the over powered companions. Their goal was to get people to play them more and they got that what they didn't calculate was the storyline aspect prior to nerfing or that people would try to do them solo instead of how they anticipated it where they didn't realize that a lot of people preferred being able to solo instead of having to take the long tedious time to find others to do them with. Personally I have more trouble finding people to help with [Heroic 2+]s and often then not I always see people asking multiple times for help with the Star Fortresses but a lot of us are done with them and don't want to do them anymore because we have to work on building our alliance by trying to recruit the others we need to to recruit which is also time consuming and so here comes a problem as well...

Edited November 23, 2015 by DarthEnrique

[Fordbird]

Hello, everyone.

 

My name is Michael Backus, and I’m the Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance. I wanted to do so personally because as fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic and our customers, we cherish your feedback and value all of you, and I feel you deserve to hear this information directly.

 

I would like to go over why the changes were made, what we’ve learned, and what’s going to happen going forward. There’s a short summary at the bottom if you want to skip the Why’s and get to the What’s.

 

Why the changes were made

Combat balance is a tricky thing. So many factors contribute to the question of, is this too easy or too hard--ability rotations, number of enemies and their abilities, player play style, player skill level, player class choice, Companion role, and even how well your computer can run the game. All of these things and more impact how well you play and how successful you are in combat. Jennifer might say, “This game’s a snap,” while Joe might say, “This is the hardest thing I’ve played in my entire life,” and there’s literally no way to tell who is “right”. The best we can do is create goals and do our best to make sure as many players as possible hit those goals. We posted our goals with different content types recently, here.

 

The one thing that was obvious was that Companions were overpowered in 4.0. We came to this conclusion, not only from player feedback and our own playtests, but from watching how players were playing—it is not ideal to send your Companion into combat in a [Heroic 2] and then go make tea, only to come back and collect your loot. We want combat to be engaging, to be fun. We want combat to be something, since you do it for so many hours, that can challenge you. If it’s too easy, we risk players not being engaged and getting bored. If it’s too hard, we risk players leaving and not even trying certain content anymore.

 

So, in 4.0.2 we toned down Companion power significantly to be in line with our stated goals. And that’s where the problem occurred.

 

What we didn’t realize was how with Knights of the Fallen Empire gameplay had evolved. As a community, you were playing differently than we had expected. I’ll give you an example.

 

Emergent Gameplay

[Heroic 2]s. Before Knights of the Fallen Empire, Heroics were not very utilized content. Most players ignored them after doing them once. So when we highlighted areas of improvement for our leveling experience, we knew we wanted to make Heroics sexier. We wanted players to have good reason to go do them, but also give players a reason to join up with their friends. What we failed to realize was how much most of you would enjoy them, but also how frequently you would engage in them. [Heroic 2]s were initially meant to be challenging content for what we would say is an “average” player. If you had good gear and really knew how to play well, you could solo them but you’d still have to pay attention to what you were doing. If you had expected gear for your level and didn’t think of yourself as that skilled, you’d probably find a friend to join you so you could both reap the rewards together.

 

With Companions being the power level they were, “everyone” began enjoying them. And that was the point that we hadn’t realized. By reducing Companion power, we took that away from a lot of you. You could still engage in [Heroic 2]s and beat them, but they had become arduous, even grindy to many players.

 

Our misstep was in not realizing that our goals we had set no longer fit with the game all of you were enjoying. The emergent gameplay that was created didn’t fit what we had embraced as our mandate within the Design Team.

 

Going Forward

So, what does that mean going forward? We will be increasing the power level of Companions. And while they won’t be as powerful as they were when Fallen Empire launched, the increase will be significant. I have gotten together with the Design Leads and we have re-discussed our goals for combat and content difficulty. We want players to enjoy [Heroic 2]s and level up their Alliance. You can find the exact changes coming in tomorrow’s patch, below. And I assure you, we will continue to carefully watch how content is being enjoyed and adapt as necessary.

• Companion healing has been increased by roughly 48%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  
• Companion damage has been increased by roughly 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  
• Companion base stats have been increased by about 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)

(click the spoiler tag for specifics)

 

 

• Companion channel heal power increased by 61%
  
• Companion single target heal power increased by 42%
  
• Companion single target heal over time power increased by 43%
  
• Companion base stats increased by 15%
  
• edit, removed note about damage increase, it is redundant with stat increase above

 

Star Fortresses

Which leads me to Star Fortresses. We are going to treat Star Fortresses as a different topic from Companion balance. The initial difficulty level for Star Fortresses are clearly story content, meaning, we expect all of you to take part and enjoy them while earning new Contacts. This hasn’t changed. The difficult mode for Star Fortresses, though, we feel is a challenge that players should aspire to achieve, and not something players should easily do without gearing up their character and increasing their Companion’s Influence level. We obviously set an expectation Heroic Star Fortresses were going to be similar to [Heroic 2] content, but that was not our intention. As a result, we are going to change the “Heroic” nomenclature for Star Fortresses to something different. We’ll let you know what we decide the new name will be soon. In addition, this will allow us to balance Star Fortresses independently of Companion power, but still make it challenging without making it impossible for many players.

 

So, in conclusion, or the tl;dr for the internet savvy:

• We will be increasing Companion power. It will not be as powerful as before, but the changes will be significant.
  
• Heroic Star Fortresses will get a new moniker to denote that it’s a different type of challenge. And we will balance Star Fortresses independently of both Companion power and [Heroic 2]s to ensure they are tuned appropriately.

 

Thank you for reading and we look forward to more of your feedback as these changes go live.

 

May the Force be with you,

Michael Backus

Lead Designer

 

Thank you for the update. Obviously, not everyone can be made happy here, but I feel this was a good compromise. I don't consider myself a super-uber player but I play all types of content. With 4.0 I sailed through every piece of solo able content with little effort. When the patch dropped, I was a little leary but decided to give it a go. Again, I cruised easily through every heroic on every planet, including the H2+ starfortresses. The only mission I was unable to solo was "vipers nest" on Makeb, but quickly found a player also having trouble and we cleared it easily together. While the content was easy for me either way, I have been playing that toon (guardian dps) for years now. There was definitely some content where I thought to myself," damn...if I was on almost any other class I wouldn't have been able to do that" and could clearly see where some newer or more casual players would be having issues and becoming very frustrated. I think for solo, story mode, casual content the companions could definitely use some buffing, and at the same time, I'm glad the "H2+" starfortresses will remain challenging. All in all, I hope most will find the same solace in the compromise that I do...thanks again.

[pegasussgc]

I was pretty frustrated with the 4.0.2 update, but this dev post was thoughtful and it goes a long way towards my outlook of the game. I think this will be a good compromise between 4.0 and 4.0.2. companions (which were actually so bad as to be broken).

 

Thank you for the communication, please consider doing this more often.

[BumBoi]

THANKS I will see what its like after the patch but hopefully I can re sub now

[vjdurjvldir]

I really appreciate the new approach to changes in this game. I love the fact, that you tell us not only what you did, but also why. I hope you will continue to do that way.

 

About the buff/nerf/buff... I could solo heroics, before 4.0 after 4.0 and after 4.0.2 too. 1 thing that changed - is how we view them now. Back then it was a mission with decent reward, probably some nice blues for you or your companion, 3 comms and some credits. It was purely optional. Now it is mandatory. You need those crates, you need crystals for gifts and these 30k credits for 1 heroic is nice too.

 

Tactical fps is an unplayable mess. HM fps are not so rewarding, as it was before 4.0. It is easier and sometimes faster to do ops than hm fp. So heroics became the main activity. And then you make it harder. Not so hard for experienced player, but nearly impossible (I'm looking at you, Makeb) for others. The result was very predictable.

[Makillda]

LOL this is a "MMO" you just lost all credibility there ...... "MMO" is not a TYPE of game its an ENVIRONMENT. LOL

 

RPG , Moba, FPS, RTS are types of games

 

As long as more than one person can connect to the same environment at the same time its a MMO regardless of the content. meaning a MMO does not REQUIRE group or PVP content to be considered a "MMO"

 

You could have a completely solo able game and it would still be a "MMO"

 

 

2. it has everything to do with it ....why do you NEED better rewards than others for doing something you enjoy?

 

 

3 agin your still repeating the same content you sound like a broken record.... see answer 1 and 2

 

4 you are so blind again see answer 2.

 

In your typical theme park MMORPG, the gear is a means to an end. It's a tool that is used to gain enough in-game power to overcome content and experience it to its conclusion. So, my question to you is:

 

If you are not pushing content, why do you need, or even want, top-end gear?

[AsarAnchti]

Very happy with the news. Thanks.

[Warrgames]

Thank you Michael Backus for the post and for listening to the community.

[_NovaBlast_]

In your typical theme park MMORPG, the gear is a means to an end. It's a tool that is used to gain enough in-game power to overcome content and experience it to its conclusion. So, my question to you is:

 

If you are not pushing content, why do you need, or even want, top-end gear?

 

SHINY , be more OP and make thing even easier

[Katahn]

It most likely won't work either of those ways.

 

Take as your starting point the original power level of companions after 4.0 = 100.

 

They were nerfed by roughly 75% which puts the the 4.02 power level = 25

 

Now they are going to buff them up by 48% from their current level = 37

 

So the companion healing power will still be down by 63% from the original 4.0 level.

 

I think they are counting on people being confused about the huge difference between nerfing down from a high value and buffing up from a low value. So the 48% buff sounds much better than it is.

 

If it's still confusing think of it this way. You have a dollar. Somebody takes away 75% of it and now you have a quarter. Then somebody adds 40% to your quarter and you still only have 35 cents.

 

That was the thought process I had as well. Assuming you're right that may or may not be enough to hit the "sweet spot" of power for companions. I'll do with them after tomorrow's patch what I did with them after last week's patch = try them and see.

 

My Sith Juggernaut (immortal) was able to solo the heroic star fortresses using the Alliance buffs (but not the clickies) without any real risk. Post-nerf I was absolutely annihilated on the third stabilizer room but in fairness I was skipping the Alliance buffs. This is in a mix of 208/216 tank-focused gear.

 

Post-buff I'll try it again. I don't mind not being able to do it, but failing as a tank-spec character on the "all for one" achievement should be a slow-slide into "dead" not 1-minute-squish as soon as a wave of adds plus the droid come out and my poor healer gets caught in a self-healing loop.

[DarthEnrique]

Let's consider some issues with the current patches. I am 100% done with recruiting people, I have recruited everyone I need to recruit and as I said I see a lot of people asking multiple times for help with the Star Fortresses. Now here's the rub when it comes to recruiting:

 

Dr. Lokin takes the Rakghoul event to be recruited. Until the event becomes available we have to spend time getting scrap for a Jawa in the Cartel Bazaar to get Dr. Lokin to get to influence 10. I have yet to get any scraps so I had to use the GTN to buy these items to get (setting me back on my money to get Revan's outfit, which really pissed me off) just to get him to influence lvl 10 before the Rakghoul event ended and get him recruited.

 

Major Pierce for those of us who ARE NOT Sith Warriors do not get the option to recruit him automatically forcing us to either have a Valor of 40 or to win 10 warzones in a row to get to 20. This is long and tedious as warzones take awhile and you have to wait on the queue and if you are lucky like I was where I only lost two of them so had to only do twelve this can be very time consuming...

 

Now Heroics give you material to be able to up your influence on you alliance for me I am only doing all that on one character because of the time consuming and long time it takes to do all these things especially the two I mentioned above to do this multiple times is a bit of a nuisance. Now granted it's nice having multi characters to send money to my main one for Revan's outfit and that literally is the only reason I even created multiple characters in the first place... I see a lot of flaw and aspects not taken into consideration here for the multiple task that need to be done to your alliance prior to the release of chapter ten...

 

Also, let me add into my own personal problem with this while I want to get all of Revan's outfit and make it my main outfit that I constantly wear I not only have to waste a lot of money buying the remaining parts I need (the gloves and the mask which are outrageously expensive) I have to also save up crystals and more money to buy the outfits just to extract the modes from them and put them on Revan's outfit.. Now no one else but I cares about how I want my character and the outfit I want him in so it's a lot of work and time consuming effort just to save up for all this on my own as it is and while I don't mind doing [Heroic 2+]s to save up for the money this is a project that I am working on for my own self satisfaction of my character and it's not something I'm taking lightly because I want to run around looking like Revan and I want the official thing not half of what I see running around where people have done a lot of the same worke just to dye the outfit or whatever they did to make it look like Revan's outfit... I just want the official thing not some custom made stuff...

Edited November 23, 2015 by DarthEnrique

[DarthVitrial]

Thanks a lot for telling us this!

Just admitting you screwed up earns you a lot of brownie points, we appreciate it. Looking forward to the next batch of balancing.

[Vestulance]

Ok, so as far as I can tell by the dev's post is you are not going to admit you messed up over there in devland ? Look I was with another game for 10 years guys(yes thru beta ect.) and have to say this and hopefully the dev's will get this. You say its about balance yet tanks can't even have abilities that make then function right, even tho that is part about what makes them a tank. This is supposed to be a team basis game at the higher lvl end of things. You guys advertised that this was all about being solo friendly in your twitch feed(Eric, it was good),but here at the patch for balance you guys nerfed so much making it not solo friendly.

 

Look ,player base plays a game because it lets them play the way they feel they want to play..Period Point Blank. Dev's can say what they want but they don't pay attention to other games of the past that basically did the same thing they did with this patch. You cant advertise one thing and flop it around so quickly ,I mean all this should have been tested on a test server before being done. Here is some other games that did the same thing and they are all MMo's just like this.

Champions Online (Cryptic Title) did the same thing exactly like this in yr 2 lost a lot of player base..their market was real low after that.

City of Heroes (NCSoft) Probably the best balanced game i've seen in 20 yrs of gaming. Look that game was closed on bad Board of Execs meeting. It's last 3 yrs was probably the best MMO example ever for player base. Ohh check Forbes on its stock and its company profile standings after it killed the game. nuff said there.

 

Dev's need to Get in the Game, team with People and look at things from the player base first hand. would help avoid these mess ups a ton.

[XiamaraSimi]

To the poster complaining yet again about "people playing an mmo that dont want the mmo part" as i say in every thread that condescendingly/snidely asks this question:

 

Im not here to play an MMO, i dont give a rats patootie about you and your wanting a teamate to do MMOy things.

 

Im here to play KOTOR 3-10+, which in case you somehow didnt realize, is what this game is. KoTOR 1 & 2 were both SINGLE PLAYER GAMES.

 

If you dont like the fact that people play this game for the KOTOR story rather then being gung ho about schlepping your butt through whatever content you dont want to be alone in, take it up with Bioware/EA for continuing KOTOR in an online environment.

Edited November 23, 2015 by XiamaraSimi

[Brayla_Sana]

Hello, everyone.

 

My name is Michael Backus, and I’m the Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance. I wanted to do so personally because as fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic and our customers, we cherish your feedback and value all of you, and I feel you deserve to hear this information directly.

 

[clip]

 

Thank you for reading and we look forward to more of your feedback as these changes go live.

 

May the Force be with you,

Michael Backus

Lead Designer

 

This is a good start. I would really like, however, to see the bugs that became obvious be addressed. There are periods of time where companions stand there and do nothing. We affectionately call this "Stand in Stupid." Also in the healer AI, often companions will be "topping off" their own health rather than healing the player who has considerably less health. Thirdly, there is no way in the new companion bar to "turn off" attacking completely for healer companions. I think that you will find that once these issues are addressed, companion power could be tuned down further - in a lot of ways, the extra power was compensating for defects in the AI.

 

I also think it's time to think about implementing a difficulty level system in the game for solo and heroic content. I think this would help a great deal with the casual vs. hardcore problem, allowing more of us who have busy schedules and crazy lives to enjoy the Old Republic universe, while giving hardcore players a level that is worthy of their greater skill and therefore appropriately rewarding.

 

Furthermore, I would like to see an end to untested gameplay changes. Release gameplay changes and story content separately, so the gameplay content can be put on the test server and fully tested by players before being put live. This approach would have been helpful to avoid the hard feelings that came with the gameplay and crafting changes that came with KOTFE.

 

Please let us learn from our mistakes and move forward.

[branmakmuffin]

To the poster complaining yet again about "people playing an mmo that dont want the mmo part" as i say in every thread that condescendingly/snidely asks this question:

 

Im not here to play an MMO, i dont give a rats patootie about you and your wanting a teamate to do MMOy things.

Hey, I say things like that a lot.

[Lunafox]

Thanks Michael for taking the time to write to us and explain things. It's appreciated. I also appreciate that the companions will be increased again. As I said in another post, for next time, perhaps, it would be better for you to start on the low end of the scale and buff up the companions or what not higher as needed, if it's not enough. Giving us something OP and then taking it away causes everyone troubles.

 

I gave the heroics a fair shake, and I found the higher lvl planets a nuisance. It just took way too long to do them and it was dull work and no fun. This stuff is something we should be able to clear relatively quickly so we can move on and do other activities within the game.

 

Anyways, thanks for listening, and let's hope this is the fix we're all looking for.

[XiamaraSimi]

Hey, I say things like that a lot.

 

Oh crud i think brans contagious...

[Lyaise]

Thank you :-)

[Vyko]

Michael, I appreciate that you've realized we don't play the game in a way that matches your vision. That takes guts to admit.

 

That being said, it's tempting to hold your feet to the fire a little bit:

 

We've been told:

 

- Story content won't be gated behind group content, then the story is gated behind non-soloable (easily, regardless of what the higher-end players say) Heroic Star Fortresses. Heroic 2+ becomes nearly impossible because of incompetent/broken companions. There's no reason we can't finish the story quests in the Story mode.

 

- KotFE is solo friendly! A return to BioWare storytelling! (direct quote from a marketing email). The storytelling is as good as you guys ever do, I love it. That said, it felt pretty bait-and-switchy to play for a couple weeks and then have it taken back.

 

- You say that Heroic 2+ should be group content, Eric says that the companion should absolutely count as the second person in a Heroic 2+. Which is it, please?

 

- What was done to NPC health/mitigation last week? My toons are hitting them just as hard as they were last week, but the NPCs are lasting probably 50% longer.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Vyko

[Lunafox]

Oh crud i think brans contagious...

 

Quick, get an inoculation. Would rakghoul vaccine work d'you think?

[Psychopyro]

They were nerfed by roughly 75% which puts the the 4.02 power level = 25

 

The 75% is hyperbole....

 

If people actually looked at the raw numbers (which I did), it was 61% for the top heal, 43% and 44% respectively for the channel and small heal. Which is what I got almost exactly pre patch to post patch.

 

Now given the numbers they gave, it looks like they are essentially giving 50% of that power back....

 

So the new numbers are closer to a reduction of 38% (most people said 30 to 35 was a good area by numbers) for the big heal, 18% for the channel, and 21% for the single target small heal.

[CaptJames]

Thank you Michael for replying in kind to the SWTOR community. It seemed to have upset a lot of people and made me worry about the long term operation of the game, but HEY! it's star wars! Lightsabers, lasers and Rrrowwwww! Pew pew, Report: dead.

 

*Anyway* As I said in a previous post this should have been caught before release (the OP companions) it gave a false impression of the game...once people get a taste of the something, they'll want more and want it again and again. I knew there was going to be a substantial kicking. My healer comp was doing 21k heals and my dps 35k hits...oh dear lord. My sage only just clears 20k, pre 4.0, I think it'll be higher now, single self heal with all the bells & whistles, and DPS 22k single shot.

 

I think the ratio changes are bang on for companions. I will do a usual out of combat test, to see true HPS and then start running some content. It looks be 1.9k.-2.2k HPS depending on influence/presence level. Much better than 1.1k. Hopefully the maths reflects the gameplay.

 

I think we need to reaffirm that Heroic 2s *should* be difficult to solo. The only problem is you are doing 10+ planet heroics per day on multiple toons and star fortress x 3 maybe. You basically created a recipe for disaster here by making them REQUIRED content for story progression...FYI, story content related quests should be targeted at the low difficulty spectrum, as this provides the base for players of all backgrounds. Unless it's an epic battle...like

 

 

say the final fight with the Emperor on your knight at level 50, with no T7-gear and 4 frames per second, ye good luck. I died twice but then he keeled over after the third fight because he had low endurance and got a stitch 4+ years ago when i had my old comp and the game just came out...my that was satisfying despite the obstacles. Graphics being the most problematic.

 

 

Thank you for addressing the community's issue promptly.

[Psychopyro]

- You say that Heroic 2+ should be group content, Eric says that the companion should absolutely count as the second person in a Heroic 2+. Which is it, please?

 

To be fair he said that this is what was originally intended. Given that the playerbase actually "enjoyed" them, they are basically redesigning the designation and changing the Star Fortress to no longer say Heroic 2, but some other tag that denotes group intended.