If by companions suck now you mean half the time they decide to stand there and stare at a wall rather than attacking enemies or healing you despite you ordering them to then yeah mine suck now too. That is when I can even summon them at all...

Very true. I tried doing Hammer Station on PTS, first play test was fine, after they changed healing it was not. It was because the companion just stood there shooting so when the red area effects by the boss hit the comp she died almost immediately. Not yet tried now it's live but going by your post maybe still going to be the same.

As for this

Go start a brand new toon.

 

The new content was a faceroll on already geared toons. Class stories etc now are a different story. When ypu do this don't start with a companion, wait till they give you one.

That maybe a fair point even if this was not posted as a reply to one of my own posts. I will look though my various accounts to see if I can stat a new toon, maxed out on most. I will indeed to just as you asked in the above if I have a spare character slot. Maybe a day or two before I have the time.

Personally I have not found it difficult but have found it far more time consuming.

This pretty much sums it up.

The problem is that EAWare made this game way to easy over the years and that's what people got used to. So for them tune it up like this, I'm sure most didn't expect it, hence this thread. It wouldn't surprise me if in the very near future, they tune it down a bit. As mentioned above, it's not that it's hard, it's just too grindy now.

Even when it's not technically more difficult now, it's ten times as boring because it takes so long.

I had a character who was halfway through KOTET chapter 8 when 6.0 dropped. I went back in with her to see what would happen. Ranged, item rating of 250. She did not have an issue with the second walker section, but the fight with the final Eternal Empire walker took forever. My walker could do very little damage, even with the missiles.

Vaylin was similar. Lana and Theron took a lot of damage but the fight wasn't harder, it was just longer. It also seemed harder to micromanage companions, ie, setting them to passive did nothing sometimes.

In chapter 9 the companions and my toon took a lot of damage on the Knights and walker. The fight vs. Vaylin and Arcann took a very long time, even with Dramath helping. I was literally looking at my phone because it got so boring.

I decided to time the Valkorion fight. On story mode, using Force Drain every single time I could, it took five minutes. Five minutes of just hitting him, running around the staircase and switching the Force alignment and Force Draining.

Technically again, it was no harder, but clicking through your rotation ten times instead of four isn't a challenge. Pressing more buttons isn't a challenge. It's just boring and tedious and makes the game less fun to play for me. KOTFE and KOTET also already had VM and MM so those who wanted it harder had options.

I wouldn't say it's too difficult, per se, but it is definitely more frustrating.

I play as healer and I don't like to switch gear and specs and have to spend so much time re-organizing the abilities on my hotbar, so I tend to run in heal spec while my companion is tank/dps.

On the new planets, it took so much longer than usual. Part of that was being given a rank 1 and 10 companion and not letting me switch them. I came back at 75 with a level 50 companion and it still took a while and I was still taking a beating. I wasn't dying but my gear so far isn't high enough to go through it easily.

So maybe not difficult, just a lot more time consuming.

Although if my companion is set to DPS we both go down very quickly. My healing abilities do less than 5% hp recovery at the moment, and mobs can easily melt us unless I set my comp to tank.

Very true. I tried doing Hammer Station on PTS, first play test was fine, after they changed healing it was not. It was because the companion just stood there shooting so when the red area effects by the boss hit the comp she died almost immediately. Not yet tried now it's live but going by your post maybe still going to be the same.

This was my experience too. I used a level 40 comp and did Vet Hammer. Was easy-peasy until the overhaul. After that no amount of jockeying for position, using Passive to get the comp out of circles, could keep us alive. The comp was just completely useless. I don't think it ever healed me above 50% HP once during the last fight. I finally said forget it and left. I play games to relax FROM my job, not to work another job.

Been saying this all along to people that wanted more "difficulty".

Trash mobs won't ever get "difficult", they'll just get more tedious.

Now queue 2 years of moaning mobs have too much cc/pulls, are too dense and respawn too fast so it's too much of a pain to do a weekly run on a toon and we'll get nerfs Oricon style. Rinse and repeat.

I soloed the new heroic 2s on Mek-Sha using only the gear I got from leveling. Silvers have enough health to be annoying, but nothing I have tired so far is hard.

Yeah, very few are saying it's "hard". They're saying it's tedious - and they're not wrong.

Yeah, very few are saying it's "hard". They're saying it's tedious - and they're not wrong.

I think there are issues with both. Someone else on this thread was saying they can't run a story mode flash point now. If that's true then its too hard. In addition, a lot of stuff has become a lot more tedious as you say. The problem is a lot of older players who have good legacy bonuses running max level content are not seeing the same difficulty others are.

Did a bit of testing with heroics. Did a set of 6 tat heroics on a level 70 mara in 230 purple set bonus, with a couple 240 and 250 pieces mixed in. Also did my usual of having companion on DPS.

I went in expecting it to be more iffy, so I didn't slack and made use of cooldowns, including talented obfuscate for the damage reduction. Some general things I noticed:

- Boss mobs seemed to be both harder hitting and took longer to kill. Sindal Reed in particular has always been an iffy one, kinda need to go in eyes wide open, but I could have sworn he took off a good 50% of my health with a terminate. Bit higher than anticipated.

- How hard mobs hit seemed to be different. In general, some areas seemed more touch and go than others, at times I didn't expect. Possibly some nerfed and some buffed, which would be what I'd expect with a change like this. The scaling was very inconsistent before. I'm not sure it's consistent now, but it may be inconsistent in different ways, so I have to adjust to what mobs to watch for and why.

- Health recovery out of combat seems faster than before, but maybe that's a memory glitch in my mind.

Overall, hard to say how it differs with just that testing. I'll have to try with some actual leveling at some point and see how it feels. Maybe try some of the harder heroics too. Tatooine isn't the best measure of it.

Edit: Just tried Belsavis Lord Raxxus heroic on a level 70 sniper. Got wasted on the 3rd pull by the champ. Usually not too much room for error on that one with DPS companion, but seems like less. I think they're generally hitting a bit harder and dying a little more slowly, which compounds when there are literal seconds that matter in preventing damage by killing stuff fast.

Edit2: Just got wasted by Lord Raxxus. Usually have no problem wasting him. Managed to beat him on second try with 6% health left and some wacko running away. (With DPS comp.)

Oh and the repair costs cost me so much I think I just did about a net loss of 30k credits completing that heroic. What a waste of time that was.

I think there are issues with both. Someone else on this thread was saying they can't run a story mode flash point now. If that's true then its too hard. In addition, a lot of stuff has become a lot more tedious as you say. The problem is a lot of older players who have good legacy bonuses running max level content are not seeing the same difficulty others are.

I've ran plenty of FPs, both story and hard modes, without issue. One hardmode FP I had two legit newbies in, that was a bit of a carryfest struggle, but us old dps boys were flexible enough to offtank/heal for them to get trough.

Old content is only hard if you dont know what you're doing, as I just witnessed

For the record, I'm running whatever random green gear I happen to loot. Dont have a single setbonus effect yet (my poo roll luck)

Interesting. "Too difficult" is a phrase that I have never heard applied to this game before.

Personally I have not found it difficult but have found it far more time consuming.

That's about it.

I have seen many, many battles where the hostiles had absolutely no hope of defeating my characters, but the battles still took a long time.

The enemies' attacks simply weren't strong enough to overcome my characters' armor and healing. They never made a dent in my characters' health.

Defensively, however, the hostiles had so much armor and health that it took a really, really long time to whittle them down.

I wouldn't say the battles were difficult, unless you count fighting off mind-numbing boredom.

as the topic says. companions sux again. and my character does so too. that means no fun , atleast for me.

i dont have time to grind and group up with strange fellows. i play solo like a used to, but cant anymore.

im talking about lev 1-75 not odessen stuff.

-thanks for reading

I ran the entirety of Onderon yesterday on veteran with my shadow. no issues.

Interesting. "Too difficult" is a phrase that I have never heard applied to this game before.

 

 

 

That's about it.

 

I have seen many, many battles where the hostiles had absolutely no hope of defeating my characters, but the battles still took a long time.

 

The enemies' attacks simply weren't strong enough to overcome my characters' armor and healing. They never made a dent in my characters' health.

 

Defensively, however, the hostiles had so much armor and health that it took a really, really long time to whittle them down.

 

I wouldn't say the battles were difficult, unless you count fighting off mind-numbing boredom.

This is why I play with a DPS companion whenever I can get away with it. When it crosses over into being just hard-hitting enough and long-lasting enough that I can't get away with it, it doesn't become more difficult... it becomes way more faceroll than playing with a DPS comp and more mind-numbing due to how long it takes. :/

I think at this stage, there's no point in my having hope they'll ever get the tuning in a nice spot across the board. Onslaught content actually seems fairly reasonable about this compared to KOTFE/ET from my playing yesterday, but then they change how scaling works in the same update and make just about everything else take longer, apparently. Left hand don't know what the right hand is doing.

Old content is only hard if you dont know what you're doing, as I just witnessed

Lie.

As I and others have pointed out, the change in difficulty is especially brutal for new characters.

Last week I could solo the first vet FP with a character fresh from the starter planet, with at most a few close moments.

This week it isn't even remotely possible.

These "casual" players are the ones with top tier gear, all the datacrons and +500 presence from their legacy. There have been plenty of players who were not saying anything because it was tuned fine for them.

 

So just because your viewpoint was louder doesn't mean your speaking for anyone more than I am.

That's not casual at all lol. That's a hard core player.

And to everyone talking about the game being too hard, it's definitely more difficult but not too hard. I was able to get to 306 gear with my set bonus in only about 15 hours of grinding, it's not that difficult, just time consuming.

Proof: https://i.imgur.com/JKArjQ4.jpg

Time consuming and difficult aren't the same thing.

Once you get a decent item level (about 280s, which doesn't take long to get), everything literally just melts, just like the old days.

That's not casual at all lol. That's a hard core player.

 

And to everyone talking about the game being too hard, it's definitely more difficult but not too hard. I was able to get to 306 gear with my set bonus in only about 15 hours of grinding, it's not that difficult, just time consuming.

 

Proof: https://i.imgur.com/JKArjQ4.jpg

 

Time consuming and difficult aren't the same thing.

 

Once you get a decent item level (about 280s, which doesn't take long to get), everything literally just melts, just like the old days.

How many millions of credits?

How many millions of credits?

And how much fun was that? What will you do now? Did you get your dopamine hit?

People still trying to put down casuals by saying the game used to be harder seem to neglect to mention that level sync wasn't a thing. If you had issues with something, overlevel it. Bring a friend. Get a set for your companion (when that was a thing). Clearly, some parts of the game are out of whack because they insist on keeping this level sync trash, so let people vent. People spending more time scolding others (who are likely not even from the same group) asking for content balance than giving useful feedback for BW to ignore, but at least with BW ignoring you, you'd earn an WE TOLD YOU SO' without looking like an a**.

They didn't do enough to make it more difficult. Still way too easy.

Yup, its just more annoying as the mobs take longer to kill, but they are not more dangerous.

Lie.

 

As I and others have pointed out, the change in difficulty is especially brutal for new characters.

 

Last week I could solo the first vet FP with a character fresh from the starter planet, with at most a few close moments.

 

This week it isn't even remotely possible.

As others have pointed out, difficulty is still nowhere near the level it was at launch. It is still easy compared. You cannot deny it.

I am not sure what peeps are complaining over... I just carried two insta lvl70 noobs on MM copero with my 240 esque gear and a lvl 24 Iresso... sheesh... learn your class and game mechanics people...

and I consider myself a very medicore dps at best...

I was always an advocate for more difficult content, I even recently created a thread in hope that there's gonna be a change in difficulty in 6.0. I wasn't able to test everything, but from what I've seen so far, and read here in this thread, I'll say they changed the game for the better.

1. I like the fact that in order to quickly kill mobs you need to get good. Otherwise you'll spend more time killing them with companion on heals. People that get good with their rotations and/or gear may set their companions to dps and wade through the mobs easily.

Some simple rules:

kill the healer in mob first

kill the weakest mobs first

use stuns on golds if u feel u need to and don't break it

2. I like the fact that heroics seem harder. Back in the day you either had to group for them (h2 means it was designed for 2 people with companions) or be well geared and a good player.

I used to challenge myself trying to solo H2s and H4 (there were many of those too) on appropriate level. Sometimes I could, sometimes on some characters it was too hard. I also liked grouping for Heroics, some of the best memories from this game are of grouping for Heroics.

I know many people use Heroics now for quick credits and things, but IMO dailies should be for that. Heroics MIGHT be for that purpose too, but only if player is/wants to get better in their game play. So in short: more ambitious content.

3. I like the fact that FPs seem harder. Again, I remember when you needed a group to clear those. And good groups could clear FP quickly, pugs had to talk to one another for tactics. I do not understand people complaining of wipes with lowbies/newbies without a willingness to teach them. IF you treat your fellow players like comp companions, or prefer comp companions over live players, do not expect the run to be quick and easy. IMO that way it should have always been. It used do be like that, I'm glad that it seemingly is like that now. I may start queuing for FPs again!

So I like the changes, and I think most people will get used to them, just with slight changes of their habits.

Like run dailies for quick buck, and Heroics IF you are really good or well geared.

Like talk to people in group activities.

Like form a guild for speed runs, do not expect PUGs to manage that

Like plan your battles beforehand, or you might wipe or even get killed by some more difficult mob

Like get to know your class a tiny bit and use your abilities, not just spam AOE

Like take care of your gear, craft some blues or purples in leveling content to make it easier/quicker

1. I like the fact that in order to quickly kill mobs you need to get good. Otherwise you'll spend more time killing them with companion on heals. People that get good with their rotations and/or gear may set their companions to dps and wade through the mobs easily.

Some simple rules:

kill the healer in mob first

kill the weakest mobs first

use stuns on golds if u feel u need to and don't break it

In my experience, you could already do this before Onslaught with heroics and pat yourself on the back for being skilled, so I'm not sure why a change to it is necessary.

Furthermore, I'm not gonna go so far as to claim stuff that you could once do with dps companion is impossible now because I can't speak for what the highest skill players are capable of in this game. But I do know there are things that were iffy before with a dps comp, but manageable, that are now less manageable than they were before from my experiences so far (you can see a post in this thread where I talk about some fiddling with the Lord Raxxus heroic on Belsavis).

It's a difficult thing to talk about accurately because I can't accurately judge how skilled I am or how I rank compared to other players who are skilled. I can just speak to what's different and I can't say that so far, the changes provide anything that I couldn't experience before. If anything, it's the opposite. But my testing has been limited so far, so I don't want to speak too soon. I've yet to try leveling as some people are talking about. I'm not sure how that will compare to before.

In my experience, you could already do this before Onslaught with heroics and pat yourself on the back for being skilled, so I'm not sure why a change to it is necessary.

 

Furthermore, I'm not gonna go so far as to claim stuff that you could once do with dps companion is impossible now because I can't speak for what the highest skill players are capable of in this game. But I do know there are things that were iffy before with a dps comp, but manageable, that are now less manageable than they were before from my experiences so far (you can see a post in this thread where I talk about some fiddling with the Lord Raxxus heroic on Belsavis).

 

It's a difficult thing to talk about accurately because I can't accurately judge how skilled I am or how I rank compared to other players who are skilled. I can just speak to what's different and I can't say that so far, the changes provide anything that I couldn't experience before. If anything, it's the opposite. But my testing has been limited so far, so I don't want to speak too soon. I've yet to try leveling as some people are talking about. I'm not sure how that will compare to before.

Yeah, I agree that is hard to be accurate here as everyone is different. I also read your Raxxus experience, and what I understand from it he was difficult with dps companion. You managed to kill him, but it was hard. IMO that is how it is supposed to be. Belsavis Heroics have always been harder then the lower level planets ones. On Belsavis were the H4's I could never solo, so they kinda got the game back to the spirit of it from before 4.0.

I mean I'd be very much ok with a situation where Heroics on planets like Tats or Balmorra were still pretty much doable for average player even with comp set to dps, while higher level planets' Heroics would be like that only for really good players to solo (or solo quick enough). So they would be simply one of those more challenging Heroics for people that are either really good, or willing to group. Or to those that don't mind multiple tries, as they are not doing them for bucks, but for fun challenge? Again, people that are unwilling to group or unable to get better, would still have dailies and lower level Heroics and story mode Flashpoints, right?

I'm not trying to impose my point of view, just to clarify it. The game is what it is now, and we're gonna have to deal with it either way.

I'll test some Heroics myself in a minute, on my level 40tish smuggler on Hoth and on Alderaan for comparison.