Change companions back to that they used to be

[ThomasStarWars]

We were all noobs in the game at one point or another. At what point in time did getting killed by a mob or failing a quest objective become a bad thing? This game was never overly difficult even back in the vanilla days. When I failed at something the first time, I just tried again, perhaps with a slightly different strategy. There were a couple of boss battles I recall back in the early days that I had a Dickens of a time beating.

 

Know what I did? I went and did some other things to level up and get better stuff for my character and companion and tried again and won the battle. It was a much more satisfying experience doing it that way because I had complete control over how powerful my character was and thusly could tailor the challenge I got from any piece of content to my liking.

 

that is what i miss sorely from the leveling experience.

 

challenge.

[IanArgent]

The "old game" stopped being hard when the level cap went to 55. It became pointlessly tedious when the level cap went to 60 and you could be literally invulnerable to all solo vanilla content, and most of the flashpoint content, because you could always be at least 7 or 8 levels above the content (I forget exactly where the breakpoint is, where lower-level NPCs cannot touch you - it was less than 10, but more than 5).

 

For me, the story section of the game stopped being hard with my second character, even before I got serious about datacrons.

 

I'm not going to say that there is no point at which you lose less people than you gain by making the central part of the game easy, but by making the core part of the game (the story part) widely accessible to fairly low skill levels, they have opened up their market. And if you're looking for a challenge, you can still find plenty of it. Just not in the part of the game that basically everyone has to play. If you want challenge, go play heroics with your comp set to DPS, or do some HSF or TEC, or solo a Vet FP or something. Let the people who are just in it for the story (and who set their single player games to Easy) play the story.

 

(If you want to know why there aren't any difficulty modes in the vanilla story, it's because not enough of it is instanced. The Knights chapters are almost all instanced, so the difficulty can be set to your choice without impacting other people, and without doing goofy workarounds like the Rakghoul tunnels).

[PetFish]

You mean the feeling of a false sense of entitlement? the feeling that the devs should tailor the whole game to you? with no need of any effort on your part to tailor the difficulty to yourself?

 

Protip. this is an MMO not just an RPG. it has to work for all the players, not just you.

 

Isn't this the predominant thinking around gaming these days?

 

Remember when you bought a cartridge and that was the game, that's it, you liked it or you didn't like it, you played it or you didn't.

 

Nowadays a single person doesn't like the rock on the ground cuz they have to take a step to the left to get by it so they come to the forums and throw a tantrum about it demanding change.

 

I don't know why people even buy games to *play* anymore when all they seem to want is a button that says "YOU WIN".

[YlliyaXor]

Isn't this the predominant thinking around gaming these days?

 

Remember when you bought a cartridge and that was the game, that's it, you liked it or you didn't like it, you played it or you didn't.

 

Nowadays a single person doesn't like the rock on the ground cuz they have to take a step to the left to get by it so they come to the forums and throw a tantrum about it demanding change.

 

I don't know why people even buy games to *play* anymore when all they seem to want is a button that says "YOU WIN".

 

Those games had cheats that allowed everyone to win without effort.

 

Also the right analogy is tapes, since we're talking about PC games not console games.

[ivanhedgehog]

that is what i miss sorely from the leveling experience.

 

challenge.

 

you can add challenge to your own experience if you wish. all it takes is motivation.

[Ardrossan]

 

1) no companion will rank up in any appreciable way just while you level. At most you will see maybe 5 levels total. You have to actually feed them a truck load of gifts to rank them well above level 10. leveling will at most rank up a companion a few levels.. and that is NOT a notable increase in power for either you or the companion. In addition, you can easily turn off one or more of their special attacks and overcome any nominal increase in power from going up a few levels.

 

lol. sounds like someone who doesn't play the game much. With the first comp you get, you can easily get up to rank 25 by level 50, without feeding them gifts.

 

Your other suggestions would ruin the immersive experience. If I want to run with Vette, I want her out for the story bits, not just the fighting bits - I don't want to swap her for the ship droid just because BW is too lazy to add a toggle.

 

This thread is yet another example of forum conservatism. Hey, remember the people who complained about getting too much xp during 2XP? Remember how other people, like the poster I've quoted, came up with fallacious argument after fallacious argument for why this used up resources and how players should solve their own problems [iirc 'just don't play' and 'play with your max level chars' were the most popular suggestions]?

 

And hey, do you remember that BW ignored these people and introduced the White Acute Module which effectively toggles off 2xp, rested xp, and will even mute the regular xp gain, effectively solving the problem? I notice the forum conservatives never conceded that their arguments on that issue were obviously crap, and they're still crap.

 

If I want more challenge in the game, there are things I can do, certainly. I can set my comps to dps, and I can let my gear fall a few levels behind, and I can use the WAM, but eventually it still catches up to you, and I'd prefer not to tie one hand behind my character's back when there's a much easier solution available, that only BW is able to do, just because the forum conservatives here treat anything THEY personally don't care about as 'wasting valuable resources'.

 

I've seen you tossing threads everywhere, including in the suggestion area, and I conclude what you really want is a legacy 2.10.3a server.

 

That would solve all your "I wish it was the way it was before" posts.

 

Keep utilities and level sync, and that would be perfect, imo.

[Kyrra_T]

nevermind. Edited March 19, 2018 by Kyrra_T

[IramUnleashed]

While I do appreciate the new setup, at the same time I find the fact that companions pretty much use the same move sets as all the others to be extremely dull and unoriginal. Jaesa and Xalex used to be able to cast a stream of Force Lightning, Andronikos was able to throw an explosive, and Lokin was able to turn into a freaking Rakghoul! And HK-51 had his own set of unique skills.

I feel like Lana's set up is the biggest disappointment so far in regards to the new companions. She's casts Force storm and channels healing abilities like it's nobody's business in SoR and you see her relying on Force lightning in cutscenes but as a companion she just does a jolt of electricity to stun the opponent. Theron falls under the same level of disappointment for the same reasons.

So at the very least, make each companions move set original...

[FlameYOL]

I can't tell you how many 'actual' new folk I have seen struggling with mobs and helped before they died. The 'OP' comp was influence 1 I am sure, and they had no datacrons. Just pointing out that you are centering your point of view solely on an experienced gamer coming back to the game and who has in all likelihood at least some of the datacrons. Just a thought to remember when calling for changing something back to YOUR fond memories of the game (which may only be fond memories and not the reality of what happened at the time you were actually creating them).

 

All I'm saying is that the harder solo content can help new players understand mechanics and other necessary things for endgame without having to submit themselves to group content, see it as a training ground, a stepping stone so that when they get to level cap and queue for Master or join an ops group they know at least the basics of how combat works. Again I think a difficulty slider for the vanilla game and it's later expansions would help in that matter, I'm not entirely asking them to revert the system, just add to it.

[IanArgent]

Lokin actually still turns into a Rakghoul for the fighting. He only stays unHulked if he's set to heal. He's a popular companion for mechanical reasons because of this - he melees as DPS and Tank, and ranges as a healer.

[ufarax]

I'm sure its probably too late but please bioware give us back our tanks healers and dps. This jack of all trade stuff is just far too easy and way too boring, or maybe give us the option to turn on companion roles if you want to have it in easy mode all the time

 

What he said. And to add, can we get a mute option for companions?:D:D:D

Edited March 19, 2018 by ufarax

[BJWyler]

Those games had cheats that allowed everyone to win without effort.

Which was not part of "normal" gameplay, but something extra one had to do to access it. Players weren't forced into having to play the game with the cheats always on, and never did any of those games turn the cheat mode experience into the base "normal" gameplay.

 

you can add challenge to your own experience if you wish. all it takes is motivation.

And back in the day, one could make the game as easy or difficult as one wanted - all it took was a little effort.

 

I'm not going to say that there is no point at which you lose less people than you gain by making the central part of the game easy, but by making the core part of the game (the story part) widely accessible to fairly low skill levels, they have opened up their market. And if you're looking for a challenge, you can still find plenty of it. Just not in the part of the game that basically everyone has to play. If you want challenge, go play heroics with your comp set to DPS, or do some HSF or TEC, or solo a Vet FP or something. Let the people who are just in it for the story (and who set their single player games to Easy) play the story.

 

I am all for making content (and other things) more accessible in games, but there are ways to make something accessible without removing the "challenge" that can be presented by a particular piece of content. Like many things BioWare has implemented in the last six years, there have been plenty that have been good ideas, but the execution was extremely poor.

 

Once again, the story aspect of the game was always fairly easy to get through. I don't have an issue if the story quests are the only thing what someone wants to play in the game. But you don't screw over the rest of your playerbase and ruin what essentially was the best part of your game to accommodate that subset of players - which is exactly what BioWare did with 4.0. You give those players the tools they need in order to play only the content they desire and you can leave the rest of the game alone. BioWare decided that everyone should have to play the way the story only players wanted instead of simply providing those players with items to boost their XP and leveling curve enough to do just the story.

 

What they did makes no real sense if you only look at it from a gameplay perspective. You have to look at it from the monetary end. BioWare did what they did because they got their marching orders from EA to meet certain financial and subscribers goals. Therefore, the way BioWare implemented 4.0 and 5.0 was to ensure they could meet those goals - at the cost of the gameplay for many of the playerbase and at the cost of the total playerbase in the long term. This is why this game is in the position that it is now and why Keith has his back against the wall trying to correct or reverse a lot of what was implemented in those two updates.

 

There was absolutely no need to "revamp" the leveling experience because the leveling experience wasn't broken and was the best part of the game. They simply needed to provide tools to those players who would rather speedlevel through that experience for whatever reasons.

[IanArgent]

The way the pre-Knights content is set up, there's no good way to implement scalable difficulty. They addressed the issue in the Knights gameplay by instancing everything. (The method by which the Rakghoul tunnels implement scalable content is Not Good.)

 

I will note that, after initially overshooting the difficulty reduction, then rolling it back to closer to the pre-4.x difficulty levels, they re-adjusted again to closer to the 4.0 difficulty level, and have held it steady since then.

 

Maybe I should put this in my .sig. Literally every subscriber has to be able to play story content; the purple missions. That means those are going to be the very easiest content in the game.

[BJWyler]

Maybe I should put this in my .sig. Literally every subscriber has to be able to play story content; the purple missions. That means those are going to be the very easiest content in the game.

 

And every subscriber was and is able to play story content, then and now. And back then it was the easiest content in the game. You continue to play, you continue to level up your character and you continue to provide better equipment to your character so they become more powerful. That's how you succeed - that's the core experience in an RPG.

 

Once again, when did getting killed by a mob, or failing a quest the first time one tried, or even the second and third time before one succeeded become a bad thing? I'm as casual as they come. I don't give one rat's petootie about rotations or what stat works best with the lightsaber (or blaster) I'm using. I used the skills and armor/weapons that made my character look "cool" while playing the game. Never had a problem getting through any bit of the story content except for what I mentioned in a prior post, which also explained how I beat that content in short order.

 

Once again, if there are people who simply cannot get past a certain piece of content for some unexplained reason, then you give them the tools to enable to get them past that content. You don't change the content and ruin it for every body else just for them, or force every body else to use those tools. That is simply poor game design.

Edited March 19, 2018 by BJWyler

[IanArgent]

Once again, when did getting killed by a mob, or failing a quest the first time one tried, or even the second and third time before one succeeded become a bad thing?

 

About the time Traveler's Tales made the only truly successful series of Star Wars games.

[Andryah]

lol. sounds like someone who doesn't play the game much. With the first comp you get, you can easily get up to rank 25 by level 50, without feeding them gifts.

 

Inaccurate accusation on your part.

 

What I do not do is rely on story arc to level my companions influence... because contrary to your false claim... you will not get anywhere near influence level 25 from leveling with one companion to level 50. Could you farm repeatables endlessly to get more influence? Yep you can.. but you will be way beyond level 50 with your character before you get anywhere near level 25 influence. You will cap 70 way before hand, and you will spend endless hours running missions for small amounts of gain... but if that is what you want to do with your in game time.. please feel free.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Andryah

[ThomasStarWars]

Inaccurate accusation on your part.

 

What I do not do is rely on story arc to level my companions influence... because contrary to your false claim... you will not get anywhere near influence level 25 from leveling with one companion to level 50. Could you farm repeatables endlessly to get more influence? Yep you can.. but you will be way beyond level 50 with your character before you get anywhere near level 25 influence. You will cap 70 way before hand, and you will spend endless hours running missions for small amounts of gain... but if that is what you want to do with your in game time.. please feel free.

 

jaesa willsaam was 20 rank influence by the time i hit 55. and this was just with the main class story and planetary arcs.

Edited March 19, 2018 by ThomasStarWars

[Savej]

jaesa willsaam was 20 rank influence by the time i hit 55. and this was just with the main class story and planetary arcs.

 

You'd need to itemize how you got 60k influence from story dialogs that only occasionally give more than a couple hundred inf. Especially considering Jaessa starts late in the warrior story.

 

Also, you would need to explain how you were only 55 after doing class and planet arcs.

 

I've got a couple characters through their class stories where no one had more than 15 inf levels. Maybe ds Jaessa is different with the planet arcs (which not so many people repeat) but inf 20 is still less than 1/4th the influence needed to hit 50.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Savej

[ThomasStarWars]

You'd need to itemize how you got 60k influence from story dialogs that only occasionally give more than a couple hundred inf. Especially considering Jaessa starts late in the warrior story.

 

Also, you would need to explain how you were only 55 after doing class and planet arcs.

 

I've got a couple characters through their class stories where no one had more than 15 inf levels. Maybe ds Jaessa is different with the planet arcs (which not so many people repeat) but inf 20 is still less than 1/4th the influence needed to hit 50.

 

well, i didnt do many heroics. very nearly none. my gear was all just the main quest rewards

[IoNonSoEVero]

I've got a bounty hunter right now that just left Dromund Kaas, and Mako is level 15. I didn't do any of the heroics, we ran the Black Talon once, and I didn't do the Revanite arc, but I did do all the exploration missions on both Hutta and Dromund Kaas.

 

So you can level up a companion pretty early on if you make a lot of good choices for them and if you affection farm Black Talon you get several thousand influence points. I don't know about level 50 with it (I've always fed my companions gifts after a while) but you could probably easily get them to 25.

 

But switching Mako out for a Cartel Market or reward companion, or choosing decisions that earned 'disapprove' or no influence points, would have prevented that.

[Kyrra_T]

With the patch tomorrow Bioware is adding in a vendor (that appears when you complete conquest) that allows you to buy a token for a cash price + 2 dark projects which takes a companion from 1 to 50. I think that alone tells you that 'they' realize the majority are perfectly fine with the companions as they are now, and prefer to have higher influence companions.

[Ardrossan]

Inaccurate accusation on your part.

 

What I do not do is rely on story arc to level my companions influence... because contrary to your false claim... you will not get anywhere near influence level 25 from leveling with one companion to level 50. Could you farm repeatables endlessly to get more influence? Yep you can.. but you will be way beyond level 50 with your character before you get anywhere near level 25 influence. You will cap 70 way before hand, and you will spend endless hours running missions for small amounts of gain... but if that is what you want to do with your in game time.. please feel free.

 

lol. As thomas and others have pointed out, just doing the planetary quests and sidequests will bump your characters up to rank 20-25. It's easiest with the starter characters, but even the characters that come later [like jaesa] will have the same effect, just at a slightly lower rank. I never said anything about doing repeatables like BT.

 

So no, it's not a false claim.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Ardrossan

[Kyrra_T]

lol. As thomas and others have pointed out, just doing the planetary quests and sidequests will bump your characters up to rank 20-25. It's easiest with the starter characters, but even the characters that come later [like jaesa] will have the same effect, just at a slightly lower rank. I never said anything about doing repeatables like BT.

 

So no, it's not a false claim.

 

And so Bioware should change the companions for the 5 or so people who don't like it? You are NEVER going to get back to the image in your head of 'how things were' in the game because time gives you rose colored glasses. If the 'new' companions give you that much heartache then head to the endgame where they are actually valuable at the higher influences. Do KOTFE or KOTET on Vet mode. Then do them again on Master mode. You won't think the companions are overpowered then.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Kyrra_T

[Andryah]

You'd need to itemize how you got 60k influence from story dialogs that only occasionally give more than a couple hundred inf. Especially considering Jaessa starts late in the warrior story.

 

Also, you would need to explain how you were only 55 after doing class and planet arcs.

 

I've got a couple characters through their class stories where no one had more than 15 inf levels. Maybe ds Jaessa is different with the planet arcs (which not so many people repeat) but inf 20 is still less than 1/4th the influence needed to hit 50.

 

Yeah.. a lot of throwing around of alleged numbers... but simple math does not add up here.

 

Let's explore this for a minute:

 

A) Assume you have your legacy perks to amplify influence by 30%

B) Given A, then a player will earn 260 influence from each mission dialog that is viewed as favorable by a companion. For unfavorable gains are 65 only.

C) you need a total of 40,000 influence gain to raise one companion from level 1 to level 20

D) 153 favorable companion results would be required to get 40,000 influence from missions. That is beyond the earnable influence from class missions, and is only achievable if you work heroics and other repeatables over and over again, which is in no way a time efficient approach.

 

Now.. to take the companion to 50 off of misisons, which is what some players are claiming (without any proof presented) requires 250,000 influence gained. If you do the math.. that would require 961 favorable mission influence gains at their optimum of 260 per event.

 

The math does not add up. Yeah.. you can grind missions and repeatables.. but there is no way you are doing this level of gain just from leveling. You can amp it up if you level with Flashpoints..... but that too is very time inefficient as you cannot run them as quickly and efficiently as you can solo missions.

 

You also can level up on crew missions as well.. but it is just as tedious.

 

There is a reason why all the guides on influence lead you to conclude that your best route is companion gifts --> it's the only time efficient method to level a companion.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Andryah

[ThomasStarWars]

Yeah.. a lot of throwing around of alleged numbers... but simple math does not add up here.

 

Let's explore this for a minute:

 

A) Assume you have your legacy perks to amplify influence by 30%

B) Given A, then a player will earn 260 influence from each mission dialog that is viewed as favorable by a companion. For unfavorable gains are 65 only.

C) you need a total of 40,000 influence gain to raise one companion from level 1 to level 20

D) 153 favorable companion results would be required to get 40,000 influence from missions. That is beyond the earnable influence from class missions, and is only achievable if you work heroics and other repeatables over and over again, which is in no way a time efficient approach.

 

Now.. to take the companion to 50 off of misisons, which is what some players are claiming (without any proof presented) requires 250,000 influence gained. If you do the math.. that would require 961 favorable mission influence gains at their optimum of 260 per event.

 

The math does not add up. Yeah.. you can grind missions and repeatables.. but there is no way you are doing this level of gain just from leveling. You can amp it up if you level with Flashpoints..... but that too is very time inefficient as you cannot run them as quickly and efficiently as you can solo missions.

 

You also can level up on crew missions as well.. but it is just as tedious.

 

There is a reason why all the guides on influence lead you to conclude that your best route is companion gifts --> it's the only time efficient method to level a companion.

 

are you talking about character level to 50 or companion rank to 50...

im talking about character level to 50, having a companion rank late teens to early twenties.