I'm putting this here because I'm sure its going to get buried on the forums.

 

Eric,

I appreciate the team is listening to us but at the same time it feels like this is a child's tug of war game.

 

I enjoyed actually the new companion system and getting things done and not needing help. I get that people were ************ like crazy for what feels like stupid reasons. Some people like huge challenges, others don't. I have very limited time to play, and I like to play. But due to my life which has been very stressful, I don't have time to do things like wait in a group que, guild run, heroic or raids. I just flat out don't have the time.

 

The companion system I thought was awesome. I was able to solo star fortress on regular mode, it was not easy for me, but I could get through it on my own. Now I'm reading that it's not solo-able at all (even with companion heals.)

I get that some people find it too easy. I get that some people like it.

 

My request would be for you to do something like what was done for the XP boost the last few months (which was awesome by the way). People were complaining, and you guys put out a bot that sold a free item so that it would take the xp boost off of that character. Could you do something like that for this? I'm not sure how it could work on PVP servers, but that way it gives the players a chance to use the companions in the best way for the player.

 

I've enjoyed the expansion as I love storyline and rp. I am not a pvp'er. But now, if I'm going to be struggling and waiting around for help, its going to have some serious problems on me playing. I left WoW because it got to a point once you level that all you could do was raid. I love swtor because its not the same. I would really like to see something where it could be beneficial to any player as to how powerful they want their companions to be. If it would be possible to mimic the xp buff and item to turn it off, except for companion strength (turn it off drops it to whatever) leave it keeps it where it was. That would be awesome in my opinion.

 

Just my suggestion, thank you.

I am also a player with time constraints.

 

I love the new expansion, the new story. The new companions were like manna from heaven for me. The heroic +2 are required if you want to raise the level of your alliance. There are a few dozen of them but still, I was able to do about half of them in a week and that was good for me.

 

I can't see taking multiple hours to do something I've done dozens if not hundreds of times before. I don't have the time nor the inclination.

 

It was also just plain fun to me. I actually felt epic, as my character was supposed to be.

 

All I can really do at this point is wait to see if it gets better. I think the cuts were far too deep, I think perhaps a 10% cut would have been more than enough. This - this is just too much. At this rate, it will be 5.0 before I get my alliance up to level 10.

Edited November 18, 2015 by FenyxSprig

I am also a player with time constraints.

 

I love the new expansion, the new story. The new companions were like manna from heaven for me. The heroic +2 are required if you want to raise the level of your alliance. There are a few dozen of them but still, I was able to do about half of them in a week and that was good for me.

 

I can't see taking multiple hours to do something I've done dozens if not hundreds of times before. I don't have the time nor the inclination.

 

It was also just plain fun to me. I actually felt epic, as my character was supposed to be.

 

All I can really do at this point is wait to see if it gets better. I think the cuts were far too deep, I think perhaps a 10% cut would have been more than enough. This - the is just too much. At this rate, it will be 5.0 before I get my alliance up to level 10.

 

I underlined something so simple that these elitists with their heads shoved so far up their *** are failing to grasp.

 

Its not about being bad at our class. it is about time management and not wanting to pull our hair out doing same dailies which we have done million times already. Comps made that part of content tolerable

Dear Eric,

 

Is so hard to fix the romance bug? Is so hard to let as sort the companion by influence?

Quote: Originally Posted by FenyxSprig View Post

I am also a player with time constraints.

 

I love the new expansion, the new story. The new companions were like manna from heaven for me. The heroic +2 are required if you want to raise the level of your alliance. There are a few dozen of them but still, I was able to do about half of them in a week and that was good for me.

 

I can't see taking multiple hours to do something I've done dozens if not hundreds of times before. I don't have the time nor the inclination.

 

It was also just plain fun to me. I actually felt epic, as my character was supposed to be.

 

All I can really do at this point is wait to see if it gets better. I think the cuts were far too deep, I think perhaps a 10% cut would have been more than enough. This - the is just too much. At this rate, it will be 5.0 before I get my alliance up to level 10.

I underlined something so simple that these elitists with their heads shoved so far up their *** are failing to grasp.

 

Its not about being bad at our class. it is about time management and not wanting to pull our hair out doing same dailies which we have done million times already. Comps made that part of content tolerable

 

YES

I come home and I have an hour before I have to go to bed. I need sleep to actually function like a person, not just a few hours. I like to use that hour winding down with this game. BUT if its going to turn into #$*#$(%$ I can't do anything on my own any more, this is impossible to get anything, alliances up etc. its a nightmare. I was so freaking happy with how well the companions were healing etc. I could actually get though areas without spending 15 min just getting my health back up (short stints but it adds up). I really think making it option able to the player would be the best way to handle it. or a 10% cut vs what is going on now. Not everyone has time to grind their affection either (mind you most of my companions are constantly out getting companion items). So I get home and that hour of being able to actually relax from life is starting to turn stressful, and that's not fun at all.

The repeating content complaints seem strange to me, as my Alliance is currently at rank 11 with me only having up to this point done each of the Prologue and Chapter 1 worlds once, and two additional worlds. The game has given all indication that by the time I gain the "Imperial Hero of Quesh", "Imperial Hero of Hoth", "Imperial Hero of Voss", and "Imperial Hero of Coruscant" achievements that I will be pretty close to 20. In the meantime there is so much Star Fortress-related content that I don't see myself running out of things to earn any time soon, even if there isn't all that much difference between the named Paladin fights.

I'll wait to test it, but companions were clearly OP... bolster worked perfectly wrong, though.

 

No way companions should have more mastery/end/secondary stats than played toons, I would even like them to be totally playable like in 1.x but with a little more skills available and more variety.

 

By the way, some companions clearly bugged at least in healing stance, in some areas particularly.

Yes, but look at it this way-

 

Like the XP boost item to turn it off for players who felt the game was going too fast. (I was not one of those)

If you were given an option to be able to turn on and off companions being able to do a lot or a little, would you be okay/happy with that?

 

Eric,

I know you're reading a ton of negative stuff, trying to keep some being positive here. Could you let us know that you see this? Genuinely trying to help here.

 

Like the XP boost item to turn it off for players who felt the game was going too fast. (I was not one of those)

If you were given an option to be able to turn on and off companions being able to do a lot or a little, would you be okay/happy with that?

 

If the rewards raise or decline the same amount, that could be a solution.

This has made the most sense so far. This would be probably a good things for both sides of the argument. I personally like having a character that can do those heroics with ease with my companion and do it in a timely manner. And I just did it to get some data crystals while leveling and some gear upgrades.

 

The thing is an MMO should always be about the endgame content in my opinion, thats where people want to get, so in my opinion the leveling experience should be quick and fun. Usually when an MMO comes out the leveling takes a very long time, as it's a great part of the content, but most MMO's start streamlining the leveling experiences and speeding it up later on so people can enjoy the endgame (WoW for example). Now a lot of endgame tends to be repetitive, dailies etc and this should be doable at a quick pace so there is more time for the fun stuff.

 

I personally feel the devs went in the wrong way on this, they are limiting a lot of people in their enjoyment and/or playstyle of the game and making it take longer to reach the endgame that is fun to do. If most of my playtime in a week is going to be doing weekly/dailies and so on I will stop playing the game as that becomes repetitive, but a lot of these things you need to do for several reasons, but again it should be doable in a timely fasion and if so desired being able to do this solo.

 

There is plenty of content that you can do with other people and the focus of devs should be to keep increasing that type of content instead of limiting the solo players experience. If you want the added challenge indeed give people an option to take away the leveling boost / companion boost.

 

On my Jedi knight I tend to play only with T7 or Kira as they fit with the story in my head, but the others I like to get up in influence so they are more capable in crew skills etc, this was a grind already but has become much more of a grind due to these changes and due to their repetitive nature it will eventually cause me to stop playing (as I did back during rise of the hutts) as I didn't have fun anymore in the game.

 

I play competitive sports to challenge myself and see if I'm better than other people, I play video games to unwind and have fun.

Well, I have a level 65 dps char with 216 gear, level 23 influence Healer comp.

 

I can barely get through the Heroic 2+ missions (I'm not talking about star fortress) which give me the stuff I need for the allience grind. I have to wait for ages between fights to get my defensive cooldowns all off the CD between them.

 

Before KOTFE, my char had 192 gear and Old Quinn healed better. I didn't even have to forcefeed him gifts. So its not me being a bad player, since I never had trouble during Shadow of Revan.

 

I'm not subbing again. I just bought the 60 days for levelling alts, but ... I can't do that now. I don't have the money to do what BW and elitist scum wants, to force-feed money into cartel coins, than sell those for credits which I can buy gifts with so I can raise a healer to influence 50 just so I can do content again.

 

Well, they say you get what you pay for . KOTFE is free, and now I am worse off than I was in Shadow of Revan.

Hey BW, just take KOTFE away from me. Put my char at level 60, 192 gear, give me my Old companions back as they were before KOTFE, and I'll be performing better than I do at 5 levels higher. LOL

 

Well , now if you have these things:

-A job.

-A family.

-Any other hobby you do, be it another game or walking your dog.

 

You can't do SWTOR any more. It is now only for elitists who have rich parents and can play 10 hours a day and pay 10 dollars a day into cartel coins without flinching.

The last month was the most fun I've EVER had in this game. So much so I re-subbed for 2 more months.

 

Unfortunately, I think the next 2 months will be so bad it will erase all the fun I've had. I have since already un-subbed again..

 

Well Eric, you wanted to know if it worked or not. Obviously it didn't. You've chased away all those players you brought back to the game with the give and take shenanigans, knee jerk over nerfs and the latest patch fail.

 

I'd seriously be embarrassed except for the fact screw ups and cash grabs have become the norm at Bioware. Business as usual eh?

 

16 hours and only 40% done on a 15 MB connection. You need to stop shopping your coding out to the cheapest programmers. In a normal business, a screw up like this would lose someone their job. At Bioware they're probably the head of their department.

 

Another epic face plant and its still not over yet....

I play competitive sports to challenge myself and see if I'm better than other people, I play video games to unwind and have fun.

 

Exactly. And if some people need an ingame challenge they should play ops in nightmare mode or compete in pvp against other skilled players. Everything else ist just whining and (ultimately) ruining the game for the less convicted players. You just CAN'T make a game of this size with such a diverse customer base and satisfy everyone with every single part of the game.

I'm assuming if something like a 'toggle it on and off'' would be possible in PVP servers, correct? I would think that would be a given.

 

If so I fully support this. I know some people like the challenge, I however do not. I'm not having fun... I don't have the will to repeat these heroics again and again with how tedious and difficult they are as you reach the end game.

 

I don't want to leave, christ I just resubbed... but this isn't enjoyable anymore.

I can barely do heroics (and a number of them I can't do at all). So, I tried leveling one of my chars that I have leveling on Makeb, I got wiped out.

 

Summation: I can't do heroics. I can't level where I need a companion = unplayable.

 

I'm a founding member. I've subbed for a very long time but if I can't even play the game, why should I pay them? I'm going to wait to see if they fix it, if they don't I'm going to have to take my money elsewhere. I did enjoy Tera.

Give us all a concrete example of where you a struggling.

 

Are some of you actually saying that you find the HCs impossible now? Are we talking about HC SF, not SOLO SF, or do we mean daily HCs?

 

Daily HCs are still extremely easy, I am pulling two groups at a time of 2 gold and 4 silvers (probably more) and finishing with half my HP. That's the power generator in a circle one in Alderaan.

 

Or is it more you want to gimp the game down to stupidly easy mode, because you don't have the time? Can't you just do fewer HCs per day? It's not ours or the game's fault you don't have the time.

Give us all a concrete example of where you a struggling.

 

Are some of you actually saying that you find the HCs impossible now? Are we talking about HC SF, not SOLO SF, or do we mean daily HCs?

 

Daily HCs are still extremely easy, I am pulling two groups at a time of 2 gold and 4 silvers (probably more) and finishing with half my HP. That's the power generator in a circle one in Alderaan.

 

Or is it more you want to gimp the game down to stupidly easy mode, because you don't have the time? Can't you just do fewer HCs per day? It's not ours or the game's fault you don't have the time.

 

What seems to elude you, is not everyone plays the game like you do. What you can do, is completely irrelevant to what someone else can do or wants to do.

 

But if you must know: I tried the heroic +2 (the weeklies) with dps, healer, and tank. I tried the easiest ones on Korriban, no problem though it took longer. I tried one of the moderate ones on Alderaan, huge problem. I tried one of the ones on Belsavis, completely undoable. So, then I tried leveling my char I have on Makeb and I was getting wiped out. Also, having to stop in the middle of a fight to heal up (when not doing a raid/op) is ridiculous.

 

I'm thrilled you can pull half an instance and it be fine for you.

 

It is not fine for me and judging by the deluge of comments, it's not fine for thousands of other people. And no it's not your fault that I don't have the time to spend pouring hours and hours into the game. But it is the games fault if they say they are doing things for casuals. The game is story focused. They said that the companion buffs were intended to make the game more accessible to casuals - make more of the content accessible. While I do thinks that companions needed a nerf, they did far too much.

 

Again, what is good for you, is not good for everyone else. It's that way in life, it's that way in a game.

After the endless patch from the Netherworld, I logged into SWTOR last night. Poured myself a cup of coffee, made sure the kidlets were tucked safely into bed, and tossed an invite to my husband's char. We proceeded to run towards the SF Heroic. Both wearing 208 - 220 rating gear.

 

Faceroll easy. No surprise with two players (both carnage marauders btw) and two companions (Akk - lvl 12 and Pierce lvl 21). Rocked that out. I did notice a change in heals. Pierce is no longer healing me for 20k+ instead he heals for 10k+ and that was quite adequate.

 

Alted to another char. Similar gear. Madness Sorc. With Xalek set to heals at influence 17. Grouped up with my brother. He's another carnage Mara. He had Pierce at level 12. He's in lesser gear. Mix of 200 and 208 rating. That was a bit tougher. This was faceroll easy, up until final boss. Did you know the final boss in the Nar Shada SF Heroic heals?! Not only does it stun with copious amounts of death circles, and saber throws for knockback goodness, but it heals. Huh. First time I have ever seen that. I guess I always killed that one before it even got a chance to try it. We ran some interrupts and swapped Pierce from heals to DPS (kept Xalek healing) and the boss fell over after we figured out the appropriate strat (fourth try btw).

 

So my take on SF Heroics. Grab a friend, and roflstomp things. It's might take one or two wipes to get the strat down but still entirely doable.

 

After I finished the weekly SF Heroics (twice), I swapped back to my marauder and went to run Planet Heroics.

 

Korriban. No comp needed. Entirely faceroll easy.

Dromund Kaas. No comp needed. Entirely soloable all by your lonesome.

Balmorra. No companion required again.

Tatooine. I pulled my companion just for the giggles. Solo'd through it like a breeze.

 

I'll give the SF Solo a go tonight on my barely geared Operative (208 rated almost entirely) with her influence 15 Scorpio. And I'll snag a gear up grade or two before I try the SF Heroic.

Korriban. No comp needed. Entirely faceroll easy.

Dromund Kaas. No comp needed. Entirely soloable all by your lonesome.

Balmorra. No companion required again.

Pic or it didn't happen.

You can't do SWTOR any more. It is now only for elitists who have rich parents and can play 10 hours a day and pay 10 dollars a day into cartel coins without flinching.

 

What? My parents haven't paid my bills in well over 20 years, when I left for Ft. Benning to serve in the infantry.

 

I'm hearing this "elitist" stuff thrown around a whole lot, but ye friggin gads. The game is just not that hard. It just isn't.

 

This wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth is pitiful. Just play the game and adjust, its not that bad folks, really.

If you've played other MMOs... use those basic rules. Even for raiding. CC, defensive cooldowns, line of sight, and whatever else you need to get by. So far... I've done Corellia, Coruscant, Tython (lol), Taris, Nar Shaddaa, Dromund Kaas, and Korriban. They were relatively simple. Though I've started to get spiky damage, and had to switch my influence lvl 30 comp (Theron, Cindle!) to tank. Do the ones you can do, and do them over the course of the week... and not in one sitting.

 

I've done a lot of them on my sentinel, which was the character I was worried about the most. Despite being in 208/216 gear... she's squishy as all hell. Properly timed use of defensive CDs is a must, that's for sure But I'm a 'challenge accepted' kinda person. I probably won't have any issues on my assassin. Once my husband decides what he wants to do... it'll be a cake walk. Nothing is ever going to be as hard as 40-man C'thun, or 25 man heroic mode Mimiron /shudder

 

I am supportive of your toggle idea. I, for one, think they needed to be hit with a nerf stick. Not a steel bat. Full hip swing, and everything. They knocked them out of the park.

Thank you mostly everyone for having positive feedback! I get that we're all pissed off, but trying to find and offer support to fix it is probably a lot better than just complaining and calling people idiots.

 

[/so my take on SF Heroics. Grab a friend, and roflstomp things. It's might take one or two wipes to get the strat down but still entirely doable.

QUOTE]

I'm thrilled that works for you. The problem is for myself and other players, we may only be able to play in limited amounts. Yes its our choice to chose to play during that time. I have an hour. I can either go straight through a star fortress (or used to be able to) or have to sit and wait to get a group which would easily take my whole hour, then have to actually do the instance. That's wasting my time. It's great for other people, not for me.

 

I fully agree if people want challenges go do heroics/nightmare etc. That's what they are there for.

 

I think the easiest way to fix this is somehow turn the added companion stuff (from before this patch) as an augment. Give the option to for free get an item to turn it off and on (people may change their minds). Just like the 20xp boost.

 

The only thing would be making it fair, which I like

> If the rewards raise or decline the same amount, that could be a solution.

 

The key here, would be NOT to screw over players who are using or not using the buff. I love getting furniture and things going through star fortress, but I can't do it w/o my companion. If you boost the stats again, don't take that away from me.

 

I think rewards would be have to be very dependent, as essentially raising or declining either way is hurting someone. Just because one person is amazing at figuring out how to play their class and crips everything, does not mean that I am anywhere near that good. Neither of us should be punished for deciding we need the extra or don't need the extra help. Also considering things like learning disorders. Don't punish anyone for something that is not their fault.

 

My thoughts as to PVP and Heroics- if this is done, balance.

 

PVP arena you don't have a companion out anyways, auto remove the buff for arenas. Buff turns back on as soon as you leave the arena.

 

Heroic/group missions- possibly average it out? Have something where it figures out who is using the buff and who is not and basic add together and divide to find the medium. Or even have an option if you want the GROUP to USE the buff or NOT for the instance. Majority of votes win? So you group up and que, when you get an instance and are ready to go- everyone gets an option of buff on or off. Majority of votes wins. People who don't want it can easily que together or find people who don't want it. Or run it again.

The last month was the most fun I've EVER had in this game. So much so I re-subbed for 2 more months.

 

Unfortunately, I think the next 2 months will be so bad it will erase all the fun I've had. I have since already un-subbed again..

 

Well Eric, you wanted to know if it worked or not. Obviously it didn't. You've chased away all those players you brought back to the game with the give and take shenanigans, knee jerk over nerfs and the latest patch fail.

 

I'd seriously be embarrassed except for the fact screw ups and cash grabs have become the norm at Bioware. Business as usual eh?.

 

 

This highlights exactly how i feel.

 

I can't believe I was dumb enough to give bioware my money again. Easy enough mistake, I came back to a game and found it enjoyable and so I gave them my money. DUMB! Because I should have known like Lucy they'd yank the football away.

 

I'm not unreasonable. I'm a 35y/0 engineer with a life, I have perspective, I have a reasonable grasp of business. I understand balancing actions need to be taken. But this is a company that has over YEARS shown to me that while it's certainly capable of great things, more often than not all of that takes a back seat to someone's personal agenda.

 

In any other game I'd assume changes were tested to find that perfect balance. To check feedback on something before rolling it out. In any other game I'd expect the devs to not try and self-destruct their own successes. And in any other game I DO.

 

But the campaign bugs I ran into leveling a BH? The RECYCLED content brought to me by the expansion showing abysmal spawn rates for limited targets in public areas. Bugs can be expected, but it's obvious no one even did a run-through of huge parts of the content before deploying. Then patches like this that make sweeping 50-75% cuts to player asset performance?

 

I'd usually consider it hyperbole to refer to balancing activities as a bait and switch, but I'm seriously regretting ever having given you my credit card numbers. You literally rolled out an expansion and made this big deal about how a fun and pain-free solo experience is important to you? And then turn around and make changes that say: let's make this MUCH harder on new accounts/legacies and I want these heroics to require much more grind to prepare for and 2-3 times as long to complete.....What is that?

 

Who's running the show over there that wants to throw those of us that are incredibly confused a bone?

It's the least they can do after conning me into throwing you my wallet.

 

What's your plan? Was this expected? Do you plan to change this? What the hell can I expect in the future?

 

(sadly, I know the answer to that last one. even more sadly, I knew the answer before I was dumb enough to give you my money... again)

 

I really should have seen this coming.

Who is getting a paycheck at your company that thinks its smart to do things like this? Because if you want to free up some budget space you could get rid of him/her.

Edited November 18, 2015 by HankMurphy

I'm thrilled that works for you. The problem is for myself and other players, we may only be able to play in limited amounts. Yes its our choice to chose to play during that time. I have an hour. I can either go straight through a star fortress (or used to be able to) or have to sit and wait to get a group which would easily take my whole hour, then have to actually do the instance. That's wasting my time. It's great for other people, not for me.

 

I fully agree if people want challenges go do heroics/nightmare etc. That's what they are there for.

 

I actually don't like most people enough to run FlashPoints and OPs. I put my time into those. Many many years of time on various games. Now, I have kids. The kids can wake up during raid time. That means I am left scrambling to try and deal with a kid and raiding one handed. Not going to happen anytime soon.

 

I am an RPer and Raider turned casual. That does mean I have quite a bit of MMO experience to draw from. And quite a bit of experience doing mental gymnastics number crunching my gear. I packed up my parser when I quit raiding. I don't want to spend an hour testing rotations each night to make sure I have everything just 'right'.

 

I'll give the solo content a test out tonight and see if it hurts. Maybe I'll pull out my level 15 Senya instead of Pierce. But the SF Heroics are meant to be challenging content. Now if you are having trouble with Korriban Heroics for your alliance at level 65... that's a whole different issue.

Well, champ on star fortress just destroyed me (sent dps) and 50influence t7 heals.

 

(I almost had him, until t7 buckled and couldn't heal himself enough)

 

Mind you, I'm 220/216/fullAUG geared, have nearly all presence bonuses you can have. I think I'm only missing 20pnts from broken Skadge and Blizz (the entire BH class roled out the expansion with completely broken comps)

 

Bioware: I don't know what you call this new paradigm, but it isn't fun and it isn't what I was getting when I payed you all that money a couple weeks ago.

 

I'm just going to have to renew my vows to never give your company one red cent again. I can't believe I fell for your crap again.

 

Have fun whipping the crap out of the people you claim to appreciate and value!