Companion Balance Changes

[JasonNH]

I know it's always risky around here when you divulge your thought process behind any changes, and it's much appreciated. Nice information, thank you.

[Psychopyro]

There's no schedule posted (yet) for a patch tomorrow (11/24)...

 

Probably because they don't know what fixes are for sure going to make the patch... Aside from the companion changes, they need to (hopefully) get an emergency fix for mobs not despawning.

[LookBehindThee]

Some will agree some will not however, it is refreshing to see a post explaining a conflict in conception verses play style addressed. We can argue all day long about details and who is right verses who is wrong but I honestly think this was a great attempt at being transparent while it gave all of us players a idea of what goes on behind the game in design.

I am glad I waited and did not unsub.

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving.

[Satsuke]

Let me try to explain. Sometime developers have this myopia where they can't understand the OCD tendencies of their playerbase. So in this case, while there is NO indication that there is ANY need to max out your Alliance. Nor is there ANY indication that people have to rush to do so. Nevertheless, players feel compelled to do so and will do things they might not even like to accomplish the task.

 

So from the devs perspective, they seen the Heroic 2s as optional content. They'll give you a nice reward, but there's no reason to grind them until your eyes bleed. From many player's perspective they just see that they haven't hit Alliance level 20 and must do so at all costs. I imagine that there are people out there that would go so far as to say they are "forced" to do Heroic 2s.

 

It's like the, "We never expected players to hit level 50 within days/weeks of launch. We'd expected them to take 3-5 months!" from back at launch.

 

If they aren't fully aware of the habits of their playerbase by now then that's entirely their fault. It should be painfully obvious by now that a good chunk of their players, especially the most vocal ones, are going to be grinding content like this when presented with it. Especially when it's the only way to really "progress" in the months between the end of chapter 9 and when chapter 10 will eventually launch.

[Apache]

That's pretty good. Thanks for the update and thanks for proving me wrong. I didn't think you guys were going to do anything and if you did, it wouldn't be until after the holidays. So thanks.

 

But I STILL say the problem with KoTFE is the lack of non heroic dailies that KoTFE has.

 

Had the expansion came like previous expansions with lots of non heroic dailies and a few Heroics scattered in there, most of the casual players wouldn't mind have less powerful companions.

 

But as it stands right now, the Alliance grind is almost entirely Heroics. There is no avenue for the casual solo types to take unless you make Heroic 2's very solo/casual friendly.

 

Im afraid that unlike previous expansions, the strength of companions are now going to be measured by how well they perform in Heroic 2's solo, which will make them very strong in non-heroic encounters. Totally backwards compared to the game pre-KoTFE.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Apache

[KaraPeters]

Thank you for this. As a full time working mom of an autistic child, I tend to avoid groups except on very rare occasions when my daughter is visiting with my family and I'm not working. Grouping is fun, but I don't like to keep people waiting or have to leave suddenly in the event of my daughter needing my instant attention. I very much enjoyed the changes that came with 4.0, because I could explore content I had not been able to access before without a group. Your post acknowledges and validates the concerns of both sets of concerned customers. I am currently reinstalling the game, a game that I was sad to think I had to leave, and as soon as the new patch drops I will try to see how things go and if I will resub. Your stats sound reasonable. It means a great deal that you would address our concerns so quickly.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

Well, to quote another logical sci-fi character: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

 

Thanks Spock. And you're totally right I needed to save $15 a month and play better qualities games that actually test and go through QA. So I'll do that.

[Nmyownworld]

The everyone enjoying "them" seems to be in reference to Heroics, not companions. Companions being more powerful made players enjoy heroics is the idea as far as I read it.

Okay. Thanks. I was misreading/misinterpreting that part of the OP.

[Batwer]

why not storymode/hardmode/nim for star fortress stuff?

Yes that would be good

Edited November 23, 2015 by Batwer

[Gwena]

Thank you for your sincere post, and for the information. I am very glad that companions will be getting some buffs.

 

However, I am concerned about the DPS changes. My DPS companions hit like wet noodles, and a 15% increase means they will probably hit like al dente wet noodles. Solo'ing on my healers (the Operative in particular) can be painful, but having a strong DPS companion makes a world of difference. Do you want me to re-spec DPS, or something?

 

In regards to tanks, I believe the armor/shield/etc bug(s) are getting fixed in this next patch as well? If so, that alleviates most of my concerns about tank companions . . . though again, the DPS issue. Obviously, tanks aren't supposed to dish out a ton of damage, but please make sure that they can do more than tickle the mobs.

 

I am still somewhat miffed by all of this, but I appreciate your forwardness and courtesy, and will give the changes a try.

[DarthEnrique]

I don't understand why they can't make the Solo Star Fortress progress the Alliance story and have the Heroic Star Fortress be renamed Flashpoint just for the extra loot and challenge. BW said that they wouldn't lock story behind group content anymore and while, yes, technically a very skilled player with the proper class (ie, NOT a pure DPS character) can solo them, a lot of players will still be left out. (FWIW, I have my husband who can group with me and we can complete these, so it doesn't matter to me-in B4 "Get a group, you Filthy, Anti-Social Casual!")

 

Or, as a compromise, do what you did when SoR first came out: GSI droid for one run through (per fortress). If you want to farm it, get a group or gear up properly, and be very very good at your (non-DPS) class. But to progress the story, having those locked behind mandatory group content goes against what BW had stated when they announced KotFE, which was to appeal to solo players.

 

My hopes for KotFE going forward:

 

Alliance Specialist influence is legacy wide.

Tank Comps get their shields and mitigation fixed. It's utterly asinine that that hasn't been fixed yet.

If Alliance isn't Legacy wide, then at least double the Alliance crate rewards (just those, not asking for more crystals or credits). Even better, let us choose which crates we want.

Solo Star Fortress progresses KotFE Alliance story.

Vector's voice is ACTUALLY fixed. Because Kaliyo is currently still Zashing him.

Allow us to skip companion alerts that we don't want from the get go so we can get the next alert. Not all my characters want Xalec or Qyzen or Lokin.

 

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure when I have more coffee, or when I get back into SWTOR and get irritated by small things that ought to have been looked at a while ago, I'll come up with more.

I personally think that's the point of why they made it where you have to do them as Herioc 2+ instead of solo to get the achievement in the game. This is an MMO after all so why not do a little forcing people to interact with each other on occasions?

[Vixzer]

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.

.

.

.

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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 very much for explaining everything, I understand the points you (and the team) made, please never stop trying to make SWTOR an awesome game (more than it already is), as an MMO-RPG it has already come such a incredible way.

 

Thank you for all the work

[GythralSWTOR]

There is no mention of fixing companion Tank role at all - oversight or just ignored? (they need secondary stats for the role and class they are pretending to be)

 

It seems you now want to gate a number of companions behind content that drops junk (208 items) but you want to up to HM/NiM/Ops gear - they are part of the story or did your staff not tell you that OP?

 

It seems that while this part of the issue has been raised there is no mention of the fact it should have been obvious that things had changed, but, yet again, there has been no understanding of the results of, or why it was not painfully obvious that this was going to happen, similar to the knee jerk fixes that ended up with the servers chest deep in rotting corpses! This suggests an on going issue with both play-testing (at both the average level of players and at the target audience of the event) and the general QA. Far too much has changed and been broken for the last month and other things are resurfacing that are 4 years old. Bugs in the Heroics were almost a non-issue when everyone ran it once and then ignored it, but with these changes and people running them up to 40 times a week it is another matter!

 

Also there are a number of bugs that broke levelling in the orignal content - again why the narrow focus on one thing, when it is just the glaring result of the overall issue - NO QA

Edited November 23, 2015 by GythralSWTOR

[SpiesAreUs]

Hello, everyone.

 

My name is Michael Backus, and I’m the Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

 

 

Well Michael nice to meet you eventually......

 

I have a question for you.

 

1.Now you've stuck your head above the ramparts to face the community about the companion nerf, where exactly were you a few weeks prior to 4.0 when all the bombshell changes were announced?

 

All those posts about crafting and lvl synching that split this community in every direction and not a word out of you or anyone from BW.

So why have you really come online now,well I 'll take a wild guess and say that BW are very concerned about the potential damage to their subbing player base this nerf has had ;

So in an attempt to put it right fast you've been given no choice but to actually talk to us,well make a post explaining yourself.

 

As far as I'm concerned too little too late.

You should have had the courage to talk to the community a lot sooner than this ,about all the player concerns prior to 4.0.

But as proved BW has a poor track record in that area.

 

You reap what you sow Michael.

If and when subbing players leave you only have yourselves to blame.

[Jeweledleah]

I'm sorry if it was asked before, but one of the problems with H2 Fortresses is that you have to finish them in order to finish alliance recruiter alerts/continuation of the star fortress chain.

 

so.. will you change how that works, or is this going to be a repeat of GSI quest chain?

 

moreover. if you are bound and determined to make have star fortresses fill group content niche... are you going to add them to group finder?

[Quraswren]

Thanks for the clarity. Some questions though.

 

1. How did the wildly overpowered companions make it out of internal/QA testing and to live in the state they were in? Did nobody catch on to their ludicrous power levels and flag it as a potential issue that could impact player behavior and gameplay? Did you not foresee players avoiding grouping for H2+ content and just soloing it with their overpowered companions.

 

That has been one of our bigger questions and one I do not expect BW to ever answer. How did powerful companions make it through months and months of closed beta and internal testing and it not be their goal.

 

This quote:

"So, in 4.0.2 we toned down Companion power significantly to be in line with our stated goals."

 

It needs to look more like this:

 

"So, in 4.0.2 we toned down Companion power significantly to be in line with our NEW stated goals."

because the nerfed companions was never a goal before last Tuesday. That was something new and it never crossed your mind till gamers were running the content too fast for bw in that massive grind you created.

 

The grind of 4 year old content was bad enough combined with level sync. you nerfing companions made it worse.

If it's a grind already there is no reason to make it worse.

 

Me thinks there is a bit of lying going on in his post about how powerful companions were and it not their goal given how long powerful companions were in game and it was perfectly fine for a really long time.

 

And "emergent"? Really, that's hard for me to read you call players soloing H2+ content as "emergent", especially when you created the situation for it to happen (overpowered companions) and made the content itself a central part of the post-story gameplay. Sounds silly.

 

Kinda hard to believe this all took them by surprise after months of closed beta and many more months of internal testing.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Quraswren

[damonskye]

and I feel you deserve to hear this information directly.

 

Michael, many of us feel that hearing information of any kind from the source is exactly what has been lacking lately, and while there was indeed a lot of frustration about the companion situation, a large part of the complaint has been the lack of communication over all of these changes, companions and not, since the launch of KotFE. If there is a take-away for the designers and CMs over any of this, it should be that even if it's just a series of blog posts or statements that you understand what the issues are, direct engagement with the community playing your game is infinitely more preferable to being in the dark. I used to play daily; I haven't logged in in a week and really don't know if I'm going to continue or not, entirely because I feel you guys released a game and your so-called community managers went on hiatus for a month. Perception is everything, so time will tell if something changes here.

Edited November 23, 2015 by damonskye

[Satsuke]

You should have had the courage to talk to the community a lot sooner than this ,about all the player concerns prior to 4.0.

But as proved BW has a poor track record in that area.

 

To be fair, that's the community teams fault, not Michael's. Michael likely got pulled in now because the community team needs an actually developer to poke his head in and calm folks down.

 

If the devs aren't communicating, it's because the community team isn't telling them that they need to communicate/forcing them to do so. They're busy working on the game, it's the community team who should be the ones, you know, communicating.

 

From what I've seen/read, Musco seems like a pretty cool guy. But the BioWare community team has a longstanding history of horrible and erratic communication with the community. If you want to get angry at someone for poor communication, they're the ones to direct criticism towards.

 

Michael is just responsible (in part) for the complete lack of QA for FE content and the companion changes that lead to this whole debacle to begin with : )

[DarthEnrique]

Right? Plus he said they wanted to make heroics 'sexier', I lol'd. Great post.

Right? It's like "OMG I am so turned on by Heroic 2+s." NOT! LMFAO!

[Shwarzchild]

Phenomenal post. Thank you. Love hearing the nuts and bolts of things when I can.

[_NovaBlast_]

Thanks Ipersonaly enjoyed the game more when Kotfe launched.

 

If you could maintain Comp power so you are able to Solo all avaible content in story mode difficulty that would be amazing.

 

One other request is equal rewards.

 

Please don't "punish" players by their choice of difficulty for example a solo content should still pay out the same any other difficulty level.

[Nathan_Cousland]

To be fair, that's the community teams fault, not Michael's. Michael likely got pulled in now because the community team needs an actually developer to poke his head in and calm folks down.

 

If the devs aren't communicating, it's because the community team isn't telling them that they need to communicate/forcing them to do so. They're busy working on the game, it's the community team who should be the ones, you know, communicating.

 

From what I've seen/read, Musco seems like a pretty cool guy. But the BioWare community team has a longstanding history of horrible and erratic communication with the community. If you want to get angry at someone for poor communication, they're the ones to direct criticism towards.

 

Michael is just responsible (in part) for the complete lack of QA for FE content and the companion changes that lead to this whole debacle to begin with : )

 

There needs to be a genuine and wholly realized redux of their community communication. That much is certain.

[Arlon_Nabarlly]

"So, in 4.0.2 we toned down Companion power significantly to be in line with our NEW stated goals."

because the nerfed companions was never a goal before last Tuesday. That was something new and it never crossed your mind till gamers were running the content too fast for bw in that massive grind you created.

 

I wish I saw the world how I wanted it to be instead of how it really was...

[LadyKai]

Excuse me for being dumb but i just want something clarified for me. They say the healing will be increased by 48% but does that mean it will only go up to 48% instead of the 25% it is on now or they will add 48% to the 25% making the healing go up to 73%? Edited November 23, 2015 by LadyKai

[damonskye]

There needs to be a genuine and wholly realized redux of their community communication. That much is certain.

 

Yes, and that should start immediately. A great deal of the animosity came from the fact that the community managers have been largely absent from here since the launch of KotFE, except when it came to 60 boosts and Cartel Market items.