Companion Balance Changes

[DarthScruffy]

You lost me forever. What a bunch of BS. You didn't expect people to play H2s, that's the daily content in 4.0. You designed it this way. You just lied to sidestep admitting you messed up.

 

Oh well it was fun. I'll probably check out the story on youtube but beyond that it's clear this isn't a game anymore, it's an interactive movie and that's not what I signed up for.

 

I think they'd say, "it was meant as an option, not as 'exclusive daily content'". They designed it to augment, not to replace the current daily system.

 

That said, they should have realized that with the premium being on companion gifts, 15k/mission rewards, and easy missions like the Hutta environmental mission and "Rock and a Hard Place", Heroics would become the preferred single player grind.

[Gluo]

before 4.0 I left the game because there was nothing to do but find a group and keep doing same old opps...after 4.0 you made it for people to solo things they always had to find group heroic 2 missions...since the nerf were back to have to group again...I really enjoyed have all the thing to do...now were back to grouping for everything...I hope this patch will fix the problem. please stop listening to same 5% people that play hours and hours...and start thinking about the people that get on for few and play...we spend lots money to...

[Satsuke]

I'm 100% convinced it's not just their playerbase.

 

You can observe this habit in any playerbase in any MMORPG on the market right now. Saying that players behaving in SWTOR like they do in any other MMORPG surprised them makes me question their sense of reality and leads me to conclude that they're absolutely ignorant about player behavior.

 

Go into WoW, players behave like that. Go into LOTRO, same thing. TSW, same thing. It's everywhere like that.

 

For me this is more of a "Oooooookay.... What else did you or will you mess up?"

 

Oh yeah, totally. I'm not saying this is unique to SWTOR : P

[DarkSaberMaster]

So basiclly, you caved into the crying of people who want the "I win!" button? I'm not surprised. Thanks for killing the spirit of the game. With that said, can I have all the cool loot from NiM Ops just dropped into my bank account? I don't feel that I should have to group with people to accomplish this because I don't have the time due to work and kids and such. I'm a casual and should be awarded for playing casual.

[Exly]

Apology accepted. Oh wait a minute, that was Darth Vader's line.

 

But seriously, I do accept your apology, but have a few things that still bother me about what you did here.

 

1. You tried to keep these changes a secret, and did not discuss them until after people posted about them and using unofficial sources to support their accretions.

 

2. Instead of thanking people for their feedback, you got -eric to make a post that threatened retaliation on the part of on the part of BioWare to players for discussing this issue on the forums.

 

3. You still went forward with the changes even after having access to the feedback in the aforementioned threads without regard for what people were saying, and without making the changes available for us to try out on the pts, and did not allow us to provide more information based on our testing on the changes that you could have used before going live with such a vastly unpopular update.

 

Of course there are more issues than just these three, but instead of piling on, I will just say that I think you should read all of the responses in this thread, and try to learn from the well deserved criticism that is contain within them.

[DarthEnrique]

Let's be honest here. Bioware has never done an MMO before this game is their very first and they are failing at it miserably. Also let's take into account that Disney kind of took away from the game and made it no longer canon though I don't intend to agree with that as Disney also contradicted themselves by saying games released from here on out are canon that means this recent release: KOTFE, brings KOTOR, KOTOR 2 and TOR back into canon but I kind of wonder if Disney didn't say this because of Bioware failing to have a satisfaction with the fan base to make them step up their game, which they obviously are not doing or are attempting to do but failing to do so so why would Disney want to canon a failing project to a vastly poplar world. I mean we are all here because of it being a Star Wars game and it's why we played KOTOR and KOTOR 2 because we were all under the impression prior to Disney's buying all Lucas owned companies, that the games were back stories to the Prequel Trilogy taking place long before the rise of Darth Vader or so was advertised, but while KOTOR was a successful game, Odasian took over KOTOR 2 and though they did fail to make as good game impact with it as it failed to have very convincing storyline as it is ended in a way that made you wonder what happened, there was no explanation as to what happened to Revan and the game ends on a cliffhanger, thus comes the TOR book Revan and this game to fill in where KOTOR 2 seriously lacked. Now TOR has kind of become an embarrassment to the Star Wars Universe for Bioware's lack of understanding of an MMO because this their first and only MMO that I am aware of and to be honest we were better off with them unshelving the now long lost and never to return KOTOR 3 before they tried their hand at making an MMO to test their thoughts and theories on before trying an MMO, it's like this is Bioware's test game and instead of trying to make it the best they can and keeping their costumers satisfied it makes me wonder what the point of doing an MMO was for them if they weren't going to make their first their best, are they want I to do more MMOs in the future cause I severely would advice them against it if they can't even get this one right to the point Disney disowns it and makes it no longer canon, talk about adding insult to injury... Step your game Bioware, oh haha double hit with that. Lol! Edited November 23, 2015 by DarthEnrique

[Alssaran]

So basiclly, you caved into the crying of people who want the "I win!" button? I'm not surprised. Thanks for killing the spirit of the game.

 

In what universe is a companion that can at least hold a golden mob without dying in five seconds an "I win!" button? Even as someone who likes the challenge, the proposed numbers are hardly an I win scenario. They are more like a: "I can at least solo heroics with every class." scenario.

 

Let's be honest here.

 

...followed by a rant and immediate assumptions and half-truths, mixed with subjective observations.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Alssaran

[foxxecho]

I was wondering this myself. It seems that people/things that were DPS pre-kotfe tend to... suck at healing in kotfe..

 

Theron tends to just stop healing and stand there picking his nose/occasionally pew pew pewing mobs. He will be at full health so its not like hes stopping healing me to heal himself, and hes usually two feet away from me so Its not a Line of Sight issue.

 

*EDIT* Both Theron and Akk Dog are Influence level 50

 

Akk Dog does the same thing in heal stance as well, instead of healing he runs up and starts chewing on mobs...

 

That aside, I appreciate the post, and the apology was lots of bonus points ^_^

 

I noticed some odd companion behavior at times and even straight up standing around for a second or two (regardless of role).

 

I was hesitant to mention it because I wasn't sure if I was just trippin and I wanted to try and see if I could figure out if it was some kind of certain combination of circumstances that leads to it, like if their abilities were on CD on target death/switch or some junk like that.

 

Hrmm.. Def something going on. ¯\(°_o)/¯

[Costello]

Michael, I fear you have missed a few points.

 

Heroic 2's, you stated you didn't realize how much people would enjoy them. Rather they are the easiest way to grind out alliance rep each one is worth 500 rep. The give incredible credits, with bonus some can give 30k, they give amazing xp for something you port to and can complete in less than 5 mins and they give coms that allows for close to top tier gear. You made them the easiest way to grind and then act surprised that people grind them. If you put a machine in that spewed out the same reward for no effort instead of the heroics you would find that was the most enjoyable content... well at least in the same vein as your judging heroics 2's.

 

Next point you appear to have buffed, very considerably the healing companions making them once again the companion of choice and for many a crutch. Nerf don't nerf, not the issue here, rather than balance the game and classes, pocket healers for all! So the fact you class/disciple isn't actually that good is disguised as at least while you have your pocket healer you they keep you up allowing you to ignore that your class just isn't very good.

 

Which leads to the most important point, you need to balance the classes (even if it is difficult) so that if your pure dps with no access to taunts, stealth, self-heals, cleanses, your damage is significantly higher to make up for it. If your melee dps and you will lose time on target cause of the mass of ground based aoe's or whatever mechanic is used to force you away that all op bosses have to make you have to run away and thus unable to dps, your dps is significantly hirer to level out over the course of the fight. The responses you got, your own metrics should show you that some classes constantly under perform and allowing them to hide behind a companion is not the answer. As when they get to flashpoints, ops and end game PvP they will have a much harder time of it and ultimately find they aren't wanted in the group, cause even the best played of that discipline is not as good as an average played alternate class.

[_NovaBlast_]

So basiclly, you caved into the crying of people who want the "I win!" button? I'm not surprised. Thanks for killing the spirit of the game. With that said, can I have all the cool loot from NiM Ops just dropped into my bank account? I don't feel that I should have to group with people to accomplish this because I don't have the time due to work and kids and such. I'm a casual and should be awarded for playing casual.

 

thanks for proving my earlier point ....i guess I can ask you the same questions.

 

and why should people who enjoy "harder "content be any different than those that don't?

 

Does your Epeen need that much validation that you think just becase you enjoy harder content that makes you "better" than someone who doesn't?.

 

Personally if i wanted to I could probably pass all the hard content if i put my mind to it . I simply don't because i don't ENJOY it. and that is what a video game is for.

 

I fail to see why many people cant seem to grasp such a simple concept.

[Jackosaur]

Thats a lot of text to say 'We're buffing companions because the bulk of our playerbase are incompetent.'

[tomius]

and why should people who enjoy "harder "content be any different than those that don't?

 

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.

 

Does your Epeen need that much validation that you think just becase you enjoy harder content that makes you "better" than someone who doesn't?.

 

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

 

Personally if i wanted to I could probably pass all the hard content if i put my mind to it . I simply don't because i don't ENJOY it. and that is what a video game is for.

 

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.

 

I fail to see why many people cant seem to grasp such a simple concept.

 

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

Edited November 23, 2015 by tomius

[Alssaran]

Personally if i wanted to I could probably pass all the hard content if i put my mind to it . I simply don't because i don't ENJOY it.

I could totally beat the living c**p out of Michael. I just don't do it because I don't want to.

 

Did anyone else have a flashback to fifth grade when reading that?

[Quraswren]

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

 

We all cannot be blissfully ignorant of things around us.

 

Powerful companions were not a problem for months to even a year if not longer. All though internal testing and closed beta testing. Powerful companions not a problem.

 

They created a new goal and that happened last Tuesday and it was a rather quickly put together POS. You cannot believe they just let powerful companions go on for that long and it was a shock to them they were that powerful. It was intended until they realized just how fast gamers were doing the grind that needed to last until at least January and the next chapter. That wasn't happening so what can you do to slow down every gamer in SWTOR? Heavily nerf companions.

 

What they didn't count on is the backlash. It was a bad enough grind as it is, making it worse didn't help.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Quraswren

[Justasmartazz]

You gotta really appreciate when someone is willing to start off with an introduction follow by:

" I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance."

You had me right there. I don't know if the changes are good or not, but at least you admit you guys did something that upset everyone and you apologized for doing it and you are going to attempt to fix it.

 

Thank you very much!

 

This is why I just resubscribed! Definitely appreciated.

[trancejeremy]

So let me get this straight:

 

For most of the game, people ignored heroics because they couldn't do them.

 

With 4.0, people suddenly could do them solo and they suddenly did them a lot.

 

This was apparently a bad thing and had to be nerfed? And even after this patch, companions are sill going to be significantly nerfed from 4.0

 

Basically it seems like you are saying, we don't want most of our players to have fun.

[Kerkuk]

Very cool, thanks! Get to resub now, wasn't looking forward to FTP lol

[Eanelinea]

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.

 

I'm OCD about the grinding. I'll sit there and send every single character I can and do heroics, heroics, heroics, more heroics, etc. I'll MAKE new characters to make sure I have the max number, (got 28 slots and 5 are available). I'll sit there and do flashpoints or world bosses, or decoration collecting or star fortress, or killing WB/Juggalos for Qyzen, I'll do 20 warzones in a row for Pierce/M1-4X and I HATE pvping.

 

I have and will continue to grind things, even the most boring, monotonous, already did it 9000 times JUST to hit rep cap, rank 50 companions, pimp out my strongholds, get achievements, play pokemon with the companions, anything as long as I'm able to do so JUST to get it. I got rank 20 with the specialists on my first toon on 11/5 BECAUSE I was farming the crap out of the heroics (me plus alts plus boxes bought with crystals, etc)

 

So...when the devs act surprised, I'm like 'um, might wanna take into account us OCD completionists'.

[slim_shady]

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.

 

First I want to say thank you for explaining and this should be done as clearly for any more game changes.

 

I agree totally that the companions were overpowered. I myself before the 4.0 update almost always used my companions in tank or DPS mode. This enabled me to enjoy the challenge, to learn to play each class better because I did not have a crutch to fall back on. I am by no means a hardcore or elitist player with uber gear and lots of play time. I do have many alts in different stages plus I low level pvp so I always have something to do in-case of the times it feels grindy. So when the 4.0 change came I was disappointed with the new companions. They felt cheesy and the skills seemed copied and pasted between each companion. I did like the fact I could use companions from other classes. I am not using any of the new ones like Lana because I can not change the look. I put the ones I use in tank or DPS mode because the constant heal spam was annoying and to much like God mode.

When you toned down the companions I thought great a much needed adjustment even with all the backlash it caused. I been running through different heroics with different classes and levels and did not see why people were having such a issue. I ran my operative level 58 bumped down to 55 levels wearing the yavin legacy gear with Kaliyo rank 9 in tank mode through Oricon from start to finish including Clipping Wings with no issues. She only died once when she pulled to many . It was a challenge at times and took about an hour or so but it was fun. I will admit the planet sync is taking a bit getting used to but now I am doing heroics and other missions I have not done before.

Now with the new changes I see coming will it still be as fun? I really wish the focus was on other areas that need desperate fixing.

Oh forgot to add Please Give Scorpio her electrostaff back.

Edited November 23, 2015 by slim_shady
Need to add something

[JourrnoRush]

So let me get this straight:

 

For most of the game, people ignored heroics because they couldn't do them.

 

With 4.0, people suddenly could do them solo and they suddenly did them a lot.

 

This was apparently a bad thing and had to be nerfed? And even after this patch, companions are sill going to be significantly nerfed from 4.0

 

Basically it seems like you are saying, we don't want most of our players to have fun.

 

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.

[Meraxos]

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%?

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.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Meraxos

[MeNaCe-NZ]

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.

 

Hi Michael.

 

Based on the above and the general tone of your post does this mean we should not expect anymore operations or PVP maps?

 

I mean if anything this evolution proves that more and more people are not interested in group gameplay and as such it would make sense to spend more development on solo gameplay as opposed to wasting precious development resources on items barely any of the community supposedly takes part in or has any interest in?

 

Whilst I'm only half serious and posting tongue in cheek to point out how silly it is to cater to a portion of the community that have little to no interest in actually doing semi challenging content ( even though you have 100's of hours of super easy story content to keep them interested ) I believe if this is the attitude you want to take then at least put more development into getting solo play right and offer more variety to all types of players i.e. difficulty settings for instances in story because a lot of KoTFE was instanced and we could have harder modes with higher dmg output and hp from mobs etc.

 

As is stands KoTFE was probably the most boring, bland gameplay experience I've experienced in a game in a looong time yet the story was great so you had that one hook to keep people interested and playing through it in the future ( had the story failed you'd be look for another job I imagine ).

Heck your own demo's almost support this because you had to enable a dev mode one shot function to roll through the demo because it was so mundane and boring to even bother demonstrating any of the combat in KoTFE.

 

I feel if you're going to focus on what people want and that seems to be solo play then at least please put more effort in to it and make it actually fun.

The people you are catering too now for the most part think your gameplay and combat is tedious, you'll see this word pop up a lot and the reason they wanted to keep the overpowered companions was to keep the tedium at a minimum.

This is more or less proven by the multitude of posts that are "but now it takes me sooo long to do this and it's boring and tedious, not difficult" which means your gameplay is tedious and boring and people want to get through it sooner to get their payday.

 

Lastly any chance anyone can do anything about Eric n co? They're usual complete mishandling of the community and inability to participate as part of the community is a major factor to what leads to 100's of pages of posts that tend to get completely out of hand in their context and content.

I would like to see a community manager that actually manages the community and participates more actively within it, it will do wonders for your companies image.

 

Thanks.

[Satsuke]

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.

 

People didn't do heroics because they were unnecessary and because they required either finding a partner or far more effort than the rewards justified. At least compared to other activities that provided experience or items/credits. They're doing them now because you need to do them to grind out rep with the 4 alliances, which is pretty much all there is to do in the game until the next chapter launches.

 

And I strongly disagree about them not wanting folks to faceroll through them at launch. Did they not bother doing ANY testing internally before launching to see how the 4.0 companions performed? Because it seems very obvious that the 4.0 companion power was very much intended, especially considering we had almost a full month of it without so much as a peep out of BioWare until a few days before the giant nerf stick came out.

[LordArtemis]

Well, first of all, IMO this is how you handle this kind of mistake. Make a post to discuss it, then indicate your decision based on what information you have gathered....

 

...have the folks that actually made the mistake come here, offer an apology and state what is going to be done to remedy it.

 

Most of all, do all of this quickly to mitigate any damage done to subscriber growth.

So bravo on all points on that.

 

Now, as to the changes, I think it will likely cause comps to sit somewhere close to pre-4.0 performance if they were reasonably geared, and I think that is a good thing.

 

Although this doesn't contain all of the changes I felt were necessary, it comprises most of them. So kudos on that.

 

I would only add a few more points as suggestions to consider....

 

Treek and HK are special companions. I would suggest they should be special again...like perhaps a bit more powerful than the others.

 

Unfortunately this still does not give an option to those players that desire more difficult content. I still think that the way to go would have been to offer daily H2 at their current level, and weekly H4 at a harder level which would require grouping and give higher rewards. This way both sets of folks are covered.

 

That means you would have TWO kiosks, not one....the daily H2+ kiosk (current difficulty level, perhaps you can tone down rewards a bit since they could be done daily without amassing huge amounts of wealth and points too quickly) and a weekly H4 kiosk.

 

I also noticed that some of the missions given daily by NPCs are no longer offered, especially on Illum and Makeb. I would suggest those missions are added to the mission kiosk.

 

Finally, I would suggest that perhaps the level sync system is adjusted to allow players to sit at one level higher than the current max level....which should still keep content "in the green", but also set the aggro and difficulty levels somewhere between where they are now and how they were when folks would outlevel the content in the past.

 

Doing that, along with these changes would likely make the content fun again for most IMO.

[Blacklynx]

Thank you for the post clarifying the "issue". How you didn't foresee this since you made the h2 a must if you want to grind alliance rep still bothers me, but at least you're responding to the issue.

 

As a suggestion, how about making it so the alliance story quests can be done in the solo mode of the star fortress? That would be lovely.

 

Once again thank you for the post, let's see what happens tomorrow.