The_Wulff Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Hello Michael, I want to start by taking this chance to thank you for your direct involvement between the community and the development team in trying to resolve the companion situation. I know it is a tough balancing act and will take some time to figure out what the path forward is. I had a few thoughts on the game since the release of 4.0 that I would like to share. The new level sync system is an interesting idea. I agree that it is a way to try to re-use areas on existing planets for new content. I think that the system on paper is a great idea however in practice I am finding that the level sync is making existing ares feel slow while leveling faster. Only some areas on planets need to be synchronized like the heroic areas on Dromund Kass (heroic areas for personal challenge, Hadra's defeat, saving face, shadow spawn, and friends of old). I think to keep heroic areas viable as content and the areas usable for new content that they should scale like the rakghoul tunnels. Change mobs for single targets set to the lowest level intended to be in that area and have the rest of the mob join at the player's level after the fight is started. This will still give XP for content and assure that the content is an effective level going forward. It also cuts down on the "grind" time for heroic area re-play as higher level players won't keep getting attacked after they have met their objective for kills taking away the feeling some are reporting of the heroics feeling tedious. Another part of the level sync issue is the speed of leveling. At this time I am level 55 and have just started Hoth. There is no mechanic to keep players within a reasonable range for planets anymore. In the past if you got too high in level you just stopped leveling until you got to a planet in your level range (even during 12x XP). It kept the process (from my perspective) feeling like there was still something to work towards. I understand that the intention is to have higher level players be able to help friends run content and learn while still providing rewards to the high level player. Maybe there is another way to make this work that doesn't trivialize the leveling process. I had the thought that maybe a tutor relic would be a better way to do this. If the relic is active the lower level player can share their missions (as a tutor mission) with the high level player. The high level player then could get a separate reward for helping like common data crystals or special orange gear pieces as the level appropriate rewards would be of no use. The last part of the level synch that I think needs to be addressed are the chapter end missions and bosses. A few examples come to mind such as either Sith class going back to Korriban for their final encounter or the smuggler going back to Nar Shadda between chapters 1 and 2. In the Sith examples the fights go from battles of the strongest in the galaxy for control to less trouble than a trash mob or the rewards get lowered to the planets reward table. I can't tell you how useful a mod for a level 20 toon is on a smuggler that should be level 34 at that time. As all of the personal story areas are instanced couldn't their level be set to where the story is? The next area I personally am finding frustrating under the new systems is loot. I understand that currently there are planet loot tables and they work well for things like decos and vendor items. The issue I am having is that the gear portion of the looting is turning out to be useless. It would be awesome if there was a second loot table based on player level for any gear drops as this would provide level appropriate gear for our toons. It wouldn't be a feedback letter if I didn't throw in my 2¢ on companions. I won't say either side is right or wrong as the power level of companions is subjective to the player they are with. What I will say is that the cat is now out of the bag and a portion of the game community will not be happy unless they can play the game with little effort. The draw back is that players that want a challenge no longer get one. The way I see things the 2 big issues with companion mechanics right now are that there is no way to remove legacy influence and that there is no way to dial in the strength of the companion. This to me feels like it could be resolved with a new companion interface that has a few tabs. The top level having the appearance gear for the companion then 3 side tabs (where player appearance tabs would be) with icons for tanking, healing, and dps. On each of the tabs you could either put a set of gear to get stats from for the role or toggle a box to auto level (kind of like the current default). This would allow the super casual to just run with a companion and allow the less casual to dial in the companion to what feels comfortable. By changing the companion interface you would also make some of us players happy that want to be able to put Lana into her Shadow of Revan gear. The other change I would love to see if I ran the zoo would be a toggle to ignore legacy influence or maybe a legacy influence slider. Sorry for the long letter and I hope it is received as it was intended, as a piece of constructive feedback. Best wishes and I look forward to seeing what you guys have planned for the chapters following! The_Wulff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Wulff Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 (edited) P.S. The choice to automatically learn new levels of skills you have already learned does make the leveling process faster and can be seen as a good thing by some. I would ask that a toggle to auto learn be added to the game too. Learning new things (even just higher levels of things already known) made leveling feel like it mattered. From my experience since the change I don't get as excited that I hit a new level. I know it sounds silly but it is the cumulative effect of all the little rewards that help make some people feel a state of accomplishment in the game and keeps them playing. Edited November 24, 2015 by The_Wulff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morten_Venisse Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Nice one Wulff. For the life of me I can't understand why the devs can't swallow their conceit and just give us slider control of the difficulty by manually tuning our own experience! A percentage scaler on dps, dtps, hps for fine tuning and broadly on influence and presence. Unless these have some obscure feed into AI then sadly we couldn't hope to do anything about the faulty decision pathing but hey if they were worrying less about unnecessary algorithms to nerf outputs they could focus on intelligence. Please add TUNING sliders with the option to combine both broad and fine. Then the freakin whiners could go off and hit up a website where they could proclaim and be ranked for how much they can achieve with personally nerfed companions, without dealing with the concept of switching them off! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muljo_Stpho Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Please add TUNING sliders with the option to combine both broad and fine. Then the freakin whiners could go off and hit up a website where they could proclaim and be ranked for how much they can achieve with personally nerfed companions, without dealing with the concept of switching them off! The idea to have three sets of gear set aside that determine all companions' stats for each role would cover "fine tuning". However, I could imagine such an idea taking a slightly different form from regular gearing if they actually add it. I picture it as one companion stat gearing tab with slots for a new type of item, "companion relics". (Could use a better name to set them apart from regular relics since they're not the same thing.) There could be a few lines marked for each role and each containing a number of slots (around 3-4 per role?) for the primary/core type of companion relic. And then off to the side from those three lines maybe one slot for a "companion melee weapon package" (modifiable version of relic has mainhand and offhand slots for hilt, mod, and enhancement), one slot for a "companion ranged weapon package" (modifiable version of relic has mainhand and offhand slots for barrel, mod, and enhancement), one slot for something comparable to a power generator / focus, one slot for something comparable to a shield generator, one slot for a "companion force user package" (supplies all of their force power stat, which would not be on the weapon/power/shield packages), and one slot for a "companion tech user package" (supplies all of their tech power stat, which would not be on the weapon/power/shield packages). Just like the 3 tabs idea, this companion relics page would provide all of the stats for all of a character's companions. If it's a melee companion pull weapon stats from the melee package. Ranged pulls from the ranged package. Pull offhand stats from the weapon, power, or shield package to match which one is needed. Pull force or tech power to match the companion's type. And the set of core relics for each role would provide stats comparable to armor, earpiece, and implants. And then add a bunch of these items all throughout the game. (Provide a number of full sets at green quality in class mission rewards. Maybe a full set at the end of every planet providing the intended ideal for the next planet. Then provide a vendor or a set of vendors with blue quality options and/or schematics. (Try to spread them around to all crafts if possible.) Or maybe they sell blue schematics and extra copies of the green companion relics. And of course the vendor would also have the modifiable versions (or schematics for them at least). Players can use them or not use as they see fit to set the companions where they want them, but it also maintains most of the simplicity of the removed gearing since it's just the one page that affects all companions. (So if you've been running with Kira and suddenly the story demands that you must run with T7, it's no problem because they pull stats from the same place.) I'm not sure about the toggle for auto-scaling though. Perhaps empty slot equals auto-scale something for that specific slot? Although yeah, for a broader stroke they could have a slider which sets a penalty/bonus to presence to go down/up from your baseline total by some selected amount or percentage. As suggested in some other topics, this difficulty slider would likely also adjust the modifiers for xp gain and credit drops from every enemy killed. Risk vs reward. Make fights tougher by making your companion weaker -> Gain more from each fight. Make fights easier by making your companion stronger -> Gain less from each fight. On the other hand, variation in companion strength from the gearing fine tuning escapes this risk vs reward structure. That is unless they get really creative / wonky with it... Like maybe stats on the companion relics are pretty modest / light compared to player character gear but every X amount of presence is a 100% boost to what the companions actually get from that gear. So if you scale your total presence up/down you're affecting what they get from their gear as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Wulff Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 Nice one Wulff. For the life of me I can't understand why the devs can't swallow their conceit and just give us slider control of the difficulty by manually tuning our own experience! A percentage scaler on dps, dtps, hps for fine tuning and broadly on influence and presence. Unless these have some obscure feed into AI then sadly we couldn't hope to do anything about the faulty decision pathing but hey if they were worrying less about unnecessary algorithms to nerf outputs they could focus on intelligence. Please add TUNING sliders with the option to combine both broad and fine. Then the freakin whiners could go off and hit up a website where they could proclaim and be ranked for how much they can achieve with personally nerfed companions, without dealing with the concept of switching them off! I don't know that there is any malice in how the devs are trying to fix things. I'd think that it is a lack of constructive feedback saying what friction people are feeling. Without people saying why they think the companions are too powerful or too weak the dev team can only adjust by changing the ranges of numbers dictating the companions and hope for the best. The idea to have three sets of gear set aside that determine all companions' stats for each role would cover "fine tuning". However, I could imagine such an idea taking a slightly different form from regular gearing if they actually add it. I picture it as one companion stat gearing tab with slots for a new type of item, "companion relics". (Could use a better name to set them apart from regular relics since they're not the same thing.) There could be a few lines marked for each role and each containing a number of slots (around 3-4 per role?) for the primary/core type of companion relic. And then off to the side from those three lines maybe one slot for a "companion melee weapon package" (modifiable version of relic has mainhand and offhand slots for hilt, mod, and enhancement), one slot for a "companion ranged weapon package" (modifiable version of relic has mainhand and offhand slots for barrel, mod, and enhancement), one slot for something comparable to a power generator / focus, one slot for something comparable to a shield generator, one slot for a "companion force user package" (supplies all of their force power stat, which would not be on the weapon/power/shield packages), and one slot for a "companion tech user package" (supplies all of their tech power stat, which would not be on the weapon/power/shield packages). Just like the 3 tabs idea, this companion relics page would provide all of the stats for all of a character's companions. If it's a melee companion pull weapon stats from the melee package. Ranged pulls from the ranged package. Pull offhand stats from the weapon, power, or shield package to match which one is needed. Pull force or tech power to match the companion's type. And the set of core relics for each role would provide stats comparable to armor, earpiece, and implants. And then add a bunch of these items all throughout the game. (Provide a number of full sets at green quality in class mission rewards. Maybe a full set at the end of every planet providing the intended ideal for the next planet. Then provide a vendor or a set of vendors with blue quality options and/or schematics. (Try to spread them around to all crafts if possible.) Or maybe they sell blue schematics and extra copies of the green companion relics. And of course the vendor would also have the modifiable versions (or schematics for them at least). Players can use them or not use as they see fit to set the companions where they want them, but it also maintains most of the simplicity of the removed gearing since it's just the one page that affects all companions. (So if you've been running with Kira and suddenly the story demands that you must run with T7, it's no problem because they pull stats from the same place.) I'm not sure about the toggle for auto-scaling though. Perhaps empty slot equals auto-scale something for that specific slot? Although yeah, for a broader stroke they could have a slider which sets a penalty/bonus to presence to go down/up from your baseline total by some selected amount or percentage. As suggested in some other topics, this difficulty slider would likely also adjust the modifiers for xp gain and credit drops from every enemy killed. Risk vs reward. Make fights tougher by making your companion weaker -> Gain more from each fight. Make fights easier by making your companion stronger -> Gain less from each fight. On the other hand, variation in companion strength from the gearing fine tuning escapes this risk vs reward structure. That is unless they get really creative / wonky with it... Like maybe stats on the companion relics are pretty modest / light compared to player character gear but every X amount of presence is a 100% boost to what the companions actually get from that gear. So if you scale your total presence up/down you're affecting what they get from their gear as well. I'd think it would be less likely for them to create a new system to make companions adjustable. It would make sense that recycling mechanics and graphics already in the game to serve the function of allowing adjustment would be more likely to be considered. This is not to say that your idea isn't a good solution just that if a simple fix might get traction quicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beyorn Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I like the companions the way they were since the endgame grind is a peta. I just wish they would make the companion grind legacy wide ;D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Wulff Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 I like the companions the way they were since the endgame grind is a pita. I just wish they would make the companion grind legacy wide ;D. I didn't say that they should take away the current use of companions for people. I offered that they could allow choice on how they preform. The issue in the forum right now is that neither side wants to acknowledge that both sides have valid points as to why the companions should change. It isn't an analog issue and because of that there isn't a single "right" answer. In your case maybe having easy mode companions is the right choice but for someone else it is the thing that will finally cause them to leave the game. I'd just like to see the game get to a place that allows for more than one way to play it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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