I died once but that was in a fight where you don't have your companion, the mobs bugged and i couldn't do any damage but they could damage me, i basically had to sit there until i died to restart the fight. Of course this was because of a bug. Other than that you are correct, you have to try and die right now.

Yes lets all of sudden change the focus away from what seems to be what the majority of players enjoy to PvP, something that this game sucks at. The work that would need to be put in to make this even a decent PvP game would be astonishing. Should they come out with some more maps? Absolutely, and they should also continue to dry and balance, but this is an MMO and great balance is almost impossible. I have yet to play an MMO that has good solid balance. This game has a crappy engine that doesn't play nice in PvP, the class balance is terrible, you can't choose which maps you want to play, the participation from players is atrocious, the rewards laughable, with the exception of the ranked rewards. Toss in the fact that it is about gear more than it is about skill. There is no open world PvP objectives, so even if there was OW PvP all you get is ganking, which is only fun for dbags who get a kick out of killing low level characters like it takes some form of skill. I can keep going on but the fact is everything that an MMO needs to be a quality PvP game, this game lacks. You want solid PvP, go play an FPS, or MOBA. Stop trying to turn this into a solid PvP game, it just isn't going to ever be that. Oh and i understand you like Star Wars and that might be the only reason you play this game, but this is not a PvP game. I wanted this to have solid PvP but it just never happened and isn't going to, the people they put in charge of doing that were incompetent.

It wouldn't change a thing. PvP in this game is bad and that has nothing to do with expertise, if anything removing expertise just creates a new set of problems. PvE gear would become the defacto best in slot, forcing them to bump up the ilevel of PvP gear, however that has the adverse of affect of now having easily obtained gear that is at the same quality as Raid gear. Players would be less likely to raid, since they can get the best gear from PvP and all they have to do is grind for a few weeks and your done. The problem with MMOs and PvP is they try to attach the gear grind philosophy that is used for Raiding and PvE. PvP should always be about skill, and strategy used to complete objectives and beat your opponent. Making PvP a gear grind, is counter productive to what PvP should be. Good PvP in an MMO either uses sheer volume of players to try balance things out, and makes the game about objectives not just killing the other openent. This is what normally is done for world PvP since it is hard to regulate gear and states in the open world. In instances PvP the normalize things and put everyone on the same ground. Rewards become cosmetic instead of a gear grind.

Obviously there is a bug and it needs to be fixed. I am just saying i have yet to run into any situation where the bug is causing a problem and companions seem UP land are getting 2 shot, like the OP is suggesting. Whether you go in with the 62 or the 65, you should not be able to solo Tacticial Hammer Station, and if you are, it is just an example of companions being too powerful, with or without the bug.

I have noticed this, but It doesn't seem to be creating any sort of problem. I have done the starfortress heroic 2+ with my companion and it was quite easy. The only content that i can't solo are the tactical FPs, that are meant for 4 people. Also whenever i go to a level sync area, my level 65 companion gets proper armor ratings. Still no shield or shield chance, but that is the result of them not having an offhand. Every companion below level 65 seems to be working just fine. I have yet to go anywhere where my companion gets owned, where i don't expect it, and the only place that happens is Tactical, or hard mode FPs that are meant for four players.

I am sorry but i can't believe heroic Star Fortress 2+ with no alliance buffs was designed to be soloed within the first couple of days of it being released with companions that were around rank 10 influence. Also for good players, the companions can easily manage threat right now, if they can't you aren't attacking the same target they are. If that is the case, well you would have trouble with any of the old school classic MMOs, where tanks couldn't easily AOE tank, and if you hit a mob outside of your tanks target you would grab aggro and die in seconds. If anything tank companions as they are seem like classic MMO tanks, with the exception that they are far more powerful since they don't need any micro managing to achieve their survive-ability. If player want all group content but HM flashpoints and OPs to require a group, I am fine with that, but in the end that doesn't really make for an MMO.

Only a few fit with the story, many are very much the republic and empire competiting. Also why do this when heroic 2+ Star Fotress can be soloed. It doesn't take that much skill to do it. Why create cross faction for what is essentially solo content. If tehy decided to nerf companions, and make it a true accomplishment for someone to solo it then i guess this would be a good idea.

@ OP what class did you run that you couldn't complete it with an influence 10 Lana. I have done it multiple times on startin with an influence 10 lana, which is now 13. Granted I have used the finally useful heroic moment ability, but if it is there, you might as well use it. Note: i do have all but 3 presence unlocks from companion quests on the character I ran with, and said character is 208 with the exception of relics Sadly almost all content in KotFE is undertuned to me. Heroic 2+ Starfortress is about the only somewhat challenging thing. Once you get used to where you need a tank companion, and where a Healer is more beneficiary, the whole thing becomes quite simple. That is if you want to use heroic moment and you aren't a mouth breather. IMO players should not be able to solo Star Fortress 2+ unless they have high level gear, or their companion is really high level influence. To do it at level 10 influence and only 208 gear makes the achievement feel rather uneventful. Personally i don't even bother with story mode Star Fortress. While it isn't very hard once you understand things, it is at least fun.

That to me says that they want you to be able to solo it at some point, probably when you have a companion who has a really high influence rank, but not one with only a level 10 influence, and maybe only some presence unlocks. Of course this is because i believe most achievements are intended to be difficult to acquire. I will have to try it out and see what level influence i can do it at, but i currently have all the companion presence unlocks. Of course it then makes me think the rest of the content is just undertuned for the strength of companions. And most of us who want a nerf to companions don't want them back to 3.0 levels, instead we want them slightly down tuned, either in their scaling with presence and influence, or their base levels, but i can't really comment on their base level strength with base presence(no unlocks), and level 1 influence rank without creating a new account, which i don't want to do.

What influence level is your companion, and what presence unlocks do you have? Also we must ask, Does bioware intend for player to solo heroic 2+ star fortress. Do they want you to do it, but only if your companions influence rank is really high, or do they always intend for you to play with at least 1 other player. If they want you to solo it, then I guess you could say they are fine, and it is the rest of the content in the game that is horribly undertuned.

Companions are most definitely a balance issue, and isn't because you won't die, it is because the game can pretty much be played without player input now because companions are so strong. With the exception of trying to do HM FPs, and of course OPs, you can pretty much solo all content in the game with your companion. I haven't personally tried soloing Tactical FPs yet, but I have heard that you can do them with how powerful they are now. Doing four man content solo should not be possible with a level sync. I am fine with player easily able to solo 2+ heroic mission. You could do that in the past, though i do wish, i would actually need to press more then a single button to do it. Granted only letting my companion fight definitely makes the fight take way too long, but the fact that they could solo the thing, is a disconcerting. The other part is not an issue of balance. I was always overleveling content with the old 0-50 content. If you did every quest on a planet you would easily overlevel and be 50 before you were even to Correllia. Now it is just a little more straightforward and clear that the optional quest are optional.

I have given up any hope that the companions will find themselves in a balanced position. Too many people like the easy mode companions, and Bioware seems incapable of doing anything but going from one extreme to the next. While i like the old companions more, there were clear problems with them. -DPS companions were basically useless unless you had them geared to high hell, -It was annoying to try and gear companions until the 3.0 with Yavin IV. You either had to pass down your old gear, which only worked for a single companion, you could spend comms on gear for your companion, or craft. -Tank companions even when geared struggle to tank against any decently geared DPS, and often times a tank would be really low on HP after any fight that involved an elite. Unless you played a healer you had just has much down time as if you were playing double DPS. -If you Micromanaged the companion by keybinding their skills you could do a lot more, but this was an annoyance for most of us. And considering the amount of keybinds most of us have just for our character abilities it gets kind of crazy to keybind your companion, just so they can perform their roles. -Healer companions were the go to companion for almost everyone. They didn't require you to gear them up to perform well, and if you did they were even more amazing. -Finally you really couldn't play with the companion you wanted. If it wasn't a healer chances are it didn't get much use. Now companions are OP, and the player almost feels like the companion due to how powerful they are. But i have a sad feeling that any change might result in healer companions becoming the only way to play again. Right now running double DPS is probably the hardest setup you can get, as both tank and healer companion roles make it so you can easily run through consecutive mobs without having to stop, even boss fight wont result in the player needing to heal up after.

For me it is what I want, but it isn't because i don't want traditional MMO aspects, it is what i want because SWtoR was and is a pretty bad MMO and probably always will be, but it can still be a damn good RPG. SWtoR tried to be both a really good MMO that attracted the elite, while also being casual friendly, and then also be an amazing RPG with great story telling. It tried to be too much and failed at all aspects. The initial MMO content was horribly balanced, and buggy, and the gearing systems were trash. The game had little gating and content was consumed to quickly. Yet at the same time, this content for the casual gamer was too hard, and so very little ever tried or completed the MMO group content. The combat system was and talent systems were a straight copy of WoW, and zero innovation or thought was added to it. When you look at the RPG elements, you got 8 very linear class stories, that were okay, but definitely not good, and it is because they spread the resources across 8 stories, and also a poorly implemented game story that wasn't really told like an RPG story, but was more like a traditional MMO story, and even that was completely linear. The game failed to make use of phasing areas, which would of allowed for non linear stories, and for individual choices not to affect other players. They also wanted to do complete voice acting like you would see in a traditional RPG, but that runs up the cost quick, especially when you are signing quality actors/actresses to do the voices. In the end, It sucked as an RPG and sucked as an MMO. Recources were spread too thin trying to do too much, and Instead of getting a quality MMO with a solid story, we got a poor MMO, with poor story, but we did get 100% voice acting, which wasn't necessary outside of the main story content. What they should of done is focused on making a good MMO, then add one solid Bioware styled RPG story with real choices that mattered. It could of been done but too much time and money was put into voice acting, and 8 different stories, instead of creating 1 solid story, and proper game engine that could handle group content like an MMO is meant to. So yes this is what i wanted, because i don't think they can save this game as an MMO, but it could still provide the solid RPG KotoR 3 experience that most people wanted to begin with.

They should just convert that useless west cost PvP server to a PvE one. It seems like no one cares about PvP these days and harbinger is overloaded at this point. It is the only server that is almost always Heavy, and lately it is Very Heavy for a good portion of the day.

If you want to call it a reboot, fine with me. Crafting became a mess with Hutt Cartel and Revan, so i personally am happy for those changes. I am indifferent when it comes to level sync, semi-optional would of been better but fully optional, and it is likely no one uses it, while always on has clear downsides. I don't think they are doing it to cover up the lack of content overall. While there definitely is a small amount of content, it looks to be more then Reven and Hutt cartel. I think it is more to establish a solid base for how they will do end game content going forward, that being not forcing you to run the same raid once a week till you want to shoot yourself because 4 weeks into the new raid you already want to put a bullet in your temple because the idea of doing that raid for another week is terrible. That is at least how i felt when i used to be a hardcore raider in MMOs. In the end, the forum community is probably the minority of players, even subs, and most people are getting riled up because it isn't the particular content that they wanted. Personally Revan was low on content, minimal story and a single raid. KotFE already looks better as far as amount of content at launch, and regular content updates compared to Revan. We can all sit here and argue until we are blue in the face, but it changes nothing. Swtor took the great old republic IP, and made a mess out of it. It has been horribly managed from the get go, with major release bugs, a game strategy that seemed to be torn between single player story experience and traditional MMO, but failing in both. I personally am glad to see them take a step back and focus on a single aspect of the game and bringing that up to par, even if other elements suffer.