They should add more content in for companions yes maybe some new smaller instances but i dont think they should do it with existing instances specially not Hard modes, the only flashpoint thats even a challenge now is Lost Island HM, the rest have been dumbed down so much u can do it with your eyes closed, the game is easy enough as it is.

Yes they are, just as much as they are designed for grouping. This game was designed to let people solo if they wish. Stop force your narrow minded beliefs on others.

 

 

 

That can happen without being a group.

 

MMO- Massively Multiplayer Online Game

 

Nothing about Massively Multiplayer spells solo to be, in fact this game encourages grouping up from 1-50 while leveling even. Increased Xp, better drop rates, heroic 2+ and 4's.

 

And as far me "forcing my believes" I never said he couldn't play solo I just said he shouldn't expect the game to be redesigned for him so he should make due with what he has and maybe make some good friends while doing it. I still talk to people I met from other MMOs that don't play this game and have many friends in Real Life and Online that I met without using facebook.

MMO- Massively Multiplayer Online Game

 

Nothing about Massively Multiplayer spells solo to be, in fact this game encourages grouping up from 1-50 while leveling even. Increased Xp, better drop rates, heroic 2+ and 4's.

 

It also doesn't need to specifically refer to playing with other people. I'm all for parallel play in MMOs, a form of play where folks play alongside each other. There's nothing that mandates your only social interactions with other players has to come from grouping. I personally love playing alongside others while maintaining social ties through chat channels and the like.

 

And as far me "forcing my believes" I never said he couldn't play solo I just said he shouldn't expect the game to be redesigned for him ...

 

Who said anything about redesigning the entire game to cater specifically to solo players? Why not have an option to choose between running an FP solo with a companion or with a full group? Having such a system in place does nothing to diminish your enjoyment of the game. It's not like it's going to take folks out of the pool of potential group members, because most people who enjoy soloing probably wouldn't group with you anyway.

Post above is good.

 

This game encourages grouping, but it should not punish soloing. There is no point for Bioware to try (as some suggest) alienate and harass single players from game that has extensive solo content.

 

And as I said before, suggested change ("Flashpoints with companions") wouldn't probably take much of time. Maybe just the change that you can call more companions when you are already in an group instance.

Edited November 2, 2012 by FINNT

Id rather have Specific Companion Flashpoints where its you and your entire crew with unique rewards, maybe companion specific gear? instead of having "solo mode" for existing flashpoints

 

That would be really nice if the flashpoint dropped gear specifically for companions. Great idea. As for the OP's idea, I wouldn't mind it. There is no basis for the rewards to be different IMO if the difficulty is the same but you are stuck with companion (lack of) AI. Personally, I would just rather use human companions. Much less obedient, but more potential.

Yes, because MMOs are meant to be played Solo...

 

Socialize, meet people with the random group finder, join a guild. You will likely meet 20 ******s for every 1 decent person but thats the same for real life.

 

Have you read your signature?

I hope the game designers consider using all companions in flashpoints normal and hm for 1.6 would really make this game more appealing to solo players. Once you get to lvl 50 all you can do is daily's if your a solo player they need to expanded the companion role to flashpoints. More folks would keep playing the game. Instead of getting bored after a few weeks at 50 the giving it up..

 

A fantastic idea! This would really help the folks that work different shifts.

It's really tiring to hear the "solo player" ask for more MMO content geared towards them, as if anything at all should be catered towards the solo player; as if the player who only likes to solo has any right to demand anything in a game specifically tailored to be a massive multiplayer online experience.

 

Every aspect of an MMO should encourage meaningful player interaction. Every. Aspect. That's what (should) define a (good) MMO. That's why we call these games MMOGs, and not "multiplayer-supported single player games."

 

-Macheath.

 

Get over yourself. Not everyone wants to group with you.

You use your companions to level and once you get L50 they are relegated to missions for crafting and crafting. I would like to use my companions even at L50 as that was a unique selling point of the game IMO. Exclusively? No, but I would like to use them. By only catering to groups that is were BW is failing. Edited November 2, 2012 by MCHentz
Clairification

I would love to see companion arena too.. more like a cage with credit bets outside... (no tokens) The ability to give them their own tirs and have a fight to the death... all players will be able to gather around the cage and watch the fights..

 

This idea could be used in a place, that bioware may establish a real black market, a different kind (more illegal) way of "galactic market"

Edited November 2, 2012 by Oyranos

I remember reading the updates and watching the interview videos for SWTOR years ago when they would talk about companions like they would be a natural extension of the player. One in specific has the Bioware guy saying that if he felt like healing then he could take out his healing companion with himself healing and be a mobile med unit and keep the entire group alive. Alternately you could get a DPS companion and together increase your DPS contribution for the group.

 

Both of those made it seem like companions would be with you through everything, including end game. I wish that had stuck around. Like everyone else says, after you hit 50 and complete your companion story, it suddenly gets very lonely on your starship ...

Flashpoints only drop loot for the classes involved, so if you solo them you only get your loot. But this should include loot for companions. It's harder to gear up companions that can't get your character's hand-downs.

It's really tiring to hear the "solo player" ask for more MMO content geared towards them, as if anything at all should be catered towards the solo player; as if the player who only likes to solo has any right to demand anything in a game specifically tailored to be a massive multiplayer online experience.

 

Every aspect of an MMO should encourage meaningful player interaction. Every. Aspect. That's what (should) define a (good) MMO. That's why we call these games MMOGs, and not "multiplayer-supported single player games."

 

-Macheath.

It's really tiring to hear people pigeonhole games into narrow categories and try to restrict them based on unimaginative opinions on how a game in a certain category should or should not behave. You must not like it when people crack jokes in action movies: "***! This is an action movie! If I wanted to laugh I'd be watching a comedy!" SWTOR is a game. It is a game that can be made more appealing to many different people in many different ways.

 

The class stories and majority of the planet missions are all soloable, so it makes sense that people who enjoy soloing content would love this game and feel invested in it. I love doing flashpoints and operations with other people. However, on the few occasions where I've had to summon my tank companion to help finish a flashpoint because we lost our tank and it was taking too long to find a replacement, I had a lot of fun. The extra challenge to control the playing field with my tank while also keeping everyone healed was exciting. I don't need more soloable content, but if someone else wants to ask for it, I understand where they're coming from. I'm not going to dismiss them as unimportant and tell them to play another game.

if u can redesign this game like gw2, let user can free and fast transfer to MORE population server as that want,

then u can feel tired, because other ppl around the world r still playing like a ghost server;

look , there is only 27ppl on fleet on the day b4 yesterday during our peak time,

how can u expect them not play solo?

 

Then your server is an outlier, or perhaps that particular day was an outlier, in the larger pool of data. From what I gather, most servers are not nearly that empty. In any case, the way to address a lack of players "looking for group" on a server isn't by creating more solo content. That would actually have the opposite effect.

 

-Macheath.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Macheath

I hope the game designers consider using all companions in flashpoints normal and hm for 1.6 would really make this game more appealing to solo players. Once you get to lvl 50 all you can do is daily's if your a solo player they need to expanded the companion role to flashpoints. More folks would keep playing the game. Instead of getting bored after a few weeks at 50 the giving it up..

 

Uhm, this is a MMO it's not supposed to be played solo... And I ain't sure what you're proposing... Are you saying that you should be able to have multiple companions out at once? And it have already been proved that flash points can be solo'ed by a well geared level 50. Though it does seem they are trying to prevent it, malgus has started to insta-kill me...

Edited November 3, 2012 by MachoLL

Lots of nice comments here. Well MMO's in my opinion are designed for solo & raid minded people. But there are a lot of times where you will be waiting for over a 1/2 hour waiting for a flashpoint. So doing a flashpoint with just you and 3 of your companions makes good sense. And will keep people interested in playing this game. A lot of people left this game because lack of things to do at lvl 50 that doesn't require a full group. If we don't have more options with companions why even bother rolling out HK-51? So we can all stand around on the fleet and look at him? Dailys are fine but really no great story lines like flashpoints for companion interaction.

Uhm, this is a MMO it's not supposed to be played solo... And I ain't sure what you're proposing... Are you saying that you should be able to have multiple companions out at once? And it have already been proved that flash points can be solo'ed by a well geared level 50. Though it does seem they are trying to prevent it, malgus has started to insta-kill me...

 

So they made 8 soloable stroylines because they are very much against players subscribing and playing solo

ok but what will you do with HK-51? Same old dailys? Could see companions in a bigger role with team dynamics.

So they made 8 soloable stroylines because they are very much against players subscribing and playing solo

 

Touché

Touché

 

/courtesy bow

I think it's gonna take longer than people think. For starters you would need about the same amount of options for companion AI as Dragon Age: Origins. Also you would need the difficulty for all flash points to be tweaked.

 

And those that enjoy grouping are still waiting for Hard Modes for several flash points and realistically that will come first (devs have said it's being worked on now).

 

If you wanna just do the story, many of the flashpoints can be solo'd at 50.

 

Black Talon/The Essells

Hammer Station

Atheis

Mandalorian Raiders

Cademimu

Boarding Party/Taral V

Foundry/Malestrom Prison

 

can all be solo'd with a companion

Id rather have Specific Companion Flashpoints where its you and your entire crew with unique rewards, maybe companion specific gear? instead of having "solo mode" for existing flashpoints

i would go for this. maybe make it a way to earn end game gear for your companions instead of grinding out more BH coms after you finish out your toon's set. i could totally see my smuggler going to a terminal on Port Nowhere to check for daily "smuggling jobs" where things might go wrong and she and her crew end up having to fight their way out of a hutt's palace. though it would be hard to make fights as epic as they can be in FPs/Ops due to the fact that companions aren't as smart as human players. still, would be awesome to see them all interact with each other.

Great idea.

 

Too bad BW missed the mark, and yet again, those who group can (ironically) solo much more than those who dont.

 

Well, most of original SWTOR dev team was fired so we might get some great ideas come through (finally, though i dont hope for much).

 

P.S. just ignore group freaks who shout "this is MMO, do you know what that means?" yes we know, but you dont

Edited November 6, 2012 by GrandMike

This isn't KOTOR 3.

This isn't a single player RPG.

Accept it.

Move on.

This isn't KOTOR 3.

This isn't a single player RPG.

Accept it.

Move on.

 

Dont worry, enough people have moved on so more than half of staff was fired and it goes F2P in less than a year, EA refuses to release sub numbers (yah, thos are THAT bad), game has gone from 220+ servers to 20, and we still have people like you preaching others to move on (yah i was here long time before release and people like you preached the same thing, you got what you wanted and we all can see how THAT turned out)

Do you insist on SWTOR shutting down?

 

Just hope that new dev team has more sense than the old one.

Edited November 6, 2012 by GrandMike