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Influence Levels Carry Over to Outlander Story?


Buellzebubba

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I'm way behind the times on this game. Most of my characters are still in the lower levels. Should I bother building up my influence levels on my followers? Does the influence level reset to 1 in the Outlander story? Thanks

There are two parts to the answer:

* Your companions disappear for a while (some aren't back yet even now(1)), but you get some new ones to replace them.

* The ones who have come back all came back with their influence ranks intact.

 

OK, there's a bit more. All the ones who haven't come back can be sort of "cloned" using a terminal that becomes available after the first nine chapters of the story are done. They come back with their influence levels intact, but will disappear again when you start the story element where they *do* come back.

 

And there are ways to lose some of them when they come back. Certain actions will make some of them refuse to join you, and others can and/or will die, either by your hand or by story-borne causes.

 

(1) There's even one who won't ever come back, in part because the English-language voice actor passed away in 2012. It's a spoiler for the early chapters of KotFE to explain how they accomplished that, but the companion in question is Tanno Vik.

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They don't reset when you start the Knights of the Fallen Empire chapters. However, it would be beneficial to level certain ones up. I think with Qyzen for example, he has to be a level 10 to recruit him even on a counselor. I could be mistaken because it has been a long time since I did that character. I know my friend only had Bowdar at a level 6 when he started the Outlander chapters and had to do the arena fights with his smuggler to bring Bowdar's influence up. I think the same with M14X and Pierce too. I would just make sure you have these companions to a level 10. The same with Dr. Lokin - gathering all those herbs for him is a pain. With Talos, I believe I just told him to pack up his gear and follow my Inquisitor to the base. Sgt. Rusk is another one that I believe has to be level 10 rank for the Jedi.
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They don't reset when you start the Knights of the Fallen Empire chapters. However, it would be beneficial to level certain ones up. I think with Qyzen for example, he has to be a level 10 to recruit him even on a counselor. I could be mistaken because it has been a long time since I did that character. I know my friend only had Bowdar at a level 6 when he started the Outlander chapters and had to do the arena fights with his smuggler to bring Bowdar's influence up. I think the same with M14X and Pierce too. I would just make sure you have these companions to a level 10. The same with Dr. Lokin - gathering all those herbs for him is a pain. With Talos, I believe I just told him to pack up his gear and follow my Inquisitor to the base. Sgt. Rusk is another one that I believe has to be level 10 rank for the Jedi.

 

All true. Basically any companion that returns through the alliance alert system needs to be influence rank 10 to be able to bypass the recruitment mission.

 

But the system gives you the option. Depending on the companion and the recruitment mission, you can choose to "order" the companion to rejoin you, or you can go through the motions of recruitment anyway.

 

For example if you enjoy PvP you might want to do the 20 WZs mission required to recruit M14X or Pierce; or maybe you already have all the materials for Lokin so scrounging them up is not a big deal; or maybe your guild is going to do a bunch of world bosses and so Qyzen will be appeased, etc.

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I think that the bypass option works for many of the original set of companions that came back after Chapter 9 of KOTFE, like Qyzen, or Pierce/Forex. But, for example, my smuggler can't bypass the Guss recruitment mission (after chapter 16 of KOTFE, as long as you have completed Blizz from chapter 11.) Then there's hybrids: having rank 10 influence with Rusk or Bowdarr or Blizz PRE-KOTFE let you bypass some of the grinding (you don't have to grind through the looted intelligence/eternal championship/salvage respectively), but not the final steps of the mission.

 

Also, Treek and HK-51 remain available to you throughout the KOTFE story for crew skills or non-chapter content, so if you have a crafting skill, you can always rank up their influences. I do that often.

 

I find it most useful to rank up influence for companions that:

  1. will come back as part of the story, like
    Vette, Torian, Temple, Kaliyo, Jorgan
     
  2. are dual-weilders, for example Vette, Ashara, Andronikos, Temple
  3. have a romance option (this one isn't so much for usefulness as personal preference)
  4. can be recruited back pretty soon through Alliance Alerts but not the story, like
    Xalek, Yuun, Qyzen, etc.
    Again, that is a personal preference

 

I also will rank up post-KOTFE companions that are dual wielders, such as Nico Okarr, Veeroa Denz, Hemdil Tre, Master Ranos. Also, companions like Z0-OM and Shae Vizla have documented dps or hps advantages over other comps because of additional AoE skills, so I'll often level those up as well.

 

If a post-KOTFE companion plays a heavy role in chapters, I'll often level those up too, anticipating I might use them to do vet-mode chapters or master mode chapters. For example, and it isn't very spoilery at this point, there is no denying that Lana plays a huge role in several chapters. If I'm on a toon that I plan on trying to do MM chapters, Lana at rank 20 or higher will be useful.

 

My go-to choices on toons for ranking up influence include, in no particular order:

 

  1. Lana Beniko
  2. Nico Okarr
  3. Master Ranos
  4. Shae Vizla if I'm on a toon with a healing discipline
  5. Z0-OM if I'm on a toon without any healing discipline option
  6. Lokin if I'm on a toon without any tanking discipline option
  7. HK-51 and Treek
  8. Veeroa Denz
  9. Hemdil Tre
  10. Vette, unless I am on a toon where I plan to save Torian in KOTET chapter 8
  11. HK-55
  12. Koth Vortena
  13. Senya Tirall

 

In general, I like to have at least 9-10 high influence companions: eight for crew skills, and one melee and one ranged for combat.

Edited by phalczen
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