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Companion Balance Changes


MichaelBackus

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Hello, everyone.

 

My name is Michael Backus, and I’m the Lead Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance. I wanted to do so personally because as fans of Star Wars: The Old Republic and our customers, we cherish your feedback and value all of you, and I feel you deserve to hear this information directly.

 

I would like to go over why the changes were made, what we’ve learned, and what’s going to happen going forward. There’s a short summary at the bottom if you want to skip the Why’s and get to the What’s.

 

Why the changes were made

Combat balance is a tricky thing. So many factors contribute to the question of, is this too easy or too hard--ability rotations, number of enemies and their abilities, player play style, player skill level, player class choice, Companion role, and even how well your computer can run the game. All of these things and more impact how well you play and how successful you are in combat. Jennifer might say, “This game’s a snap,” while Joe might say, “This is the hardest thing I’ve played in my entire life,” and there’s literally no way to tell who is “right”. The best we can do is create goals and do our best to make sure as many players as possible hit those goals. We posted our goals with different content types recently, here.

 

The one thing that was obvious was that Companions were overpowered in 4.0. We came to this conclusion, not only from player feedback and our own playtests, but from watching how players were playing—it is not ideal to send your Companion into combat in a [Heroic 2] and then go make tea, only to come back and collect your loot. We want combat to be engaging, to be fun. We want combat to be something, since you do it for so many hours, that can challenge you. If it’s too easy, we risk players not being engaged and getting bored. If it’s too hard, we risk players leaving and not even trying certain content anymore.

 

So, in 4.0.2 we toned down Companion power significantly to be in line with our stated goals. And that’s where the problem occurred.

 

What we didn’t realize was how with Knights of the Fallen Empire gameplay had evolved. As a community, you were playing differently than we had expected. I’ll give you an example.

 

Emergent Gameplay

[Heroic 2]s. Before Knights of the Fallen Empire, Heroics were not very utilized content. Most players ignored them after doing them once. So when we highlighted areas of improvement for our leveling experience, we knew we wanted to make Heroics sexier. We wanted players to have good reason to go do them, but also give players a reason to join up with their friends. What we failed to realize was how much most of you would enjoy them, but also how frequently you would engage in them. [Heroic 2]s were initially meant to be challenging content for what we would say is an “average” player. If you had good gear and really knew how to play well, you could solo them but you’d still have to pay attention to what you were doing. If you had expected gear for your level and didn’t think of yourself as that skilled, you’d probably find a friend to join you so you could both reap the rewards together.

 

With Companions being the power level they were, “everyone” began enjoying them. And that was the point that we hadn’t realized. By reducing Companion power, we took that away from a lot of you. You could still engage in [Heroic 2]s and beat them, but they had become arduous, even grindy to many players.

 

Our misstep was in not realizing that our goals we had set no longer fit with the game all of you were enjoying. The emergent gameplay that was created didn’t fit what we had embraced as our mandate within the Design Team.

 

Going Forward

So, what does that mean going forward? We will be increasing the power level of Companions. And while they won’t be as powerful as they were when Fallen Empire launched, the increase will be significant. I have gotten together with the Design Leads and we have re-discussed our goals for combat and content difficulty. We want players to enjoy [Heroic 2]s and level up their Alliance. You can find the exact changes coming in tomorrow’s patch, below. And I assure you, we will continue to carefully watch how content is being enjoyed and adapt as necessary.

  • Companion healing has been increased by roughly 48%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  • Companion damage has been increased by roughly 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)
  • Companion base stats have been increased by about 15%. (Influence level and character level will determine exact amount.)

(click the spoiler tag for specifics)

 

 

  • Companion channel heal power increased by 61%
  • Companion single target heal power increased by 42%
  • Companion single target heal over time power increased by 43%
  • Companion base stats increased by 15%
  • edit, removed note about damage increase, it is redundant with stat increase above

 

Star Fortresses

Which leads me to Star Fortresses. We are going to treat Star Fortresses as a different topic from Companion balance. The initial difficulty level for Star Fortresses are clearly story content, meaning, we expect all of you to take part and enjoy them while earning new Contacts. This hasn’t changed. The difficult mode for Star Fortresses, though, we feel is a challenge that players should aspire to achieve, and not something players should easily do without gearing up their character and increasing their Companion’s Influence level. We obviously set an expectation Heroic Star Fortresses were going to be similar to [Heroic 2] content, but that was not our intention. As a result, we are going to change the “Heroic” nomenclature for Star Fortresses to something different. We’ll let you know what we decide the new name will be soon. In addition, this will allow us to balance Star Fortresses independently of Companion power, but still make it challenging without making it impossible for many players.

 

So, in conclusion, or the tl;dr for the internet savvy:

  • We will be increasing Companion power. It will not be as powerful as before, but the changes will be significant.
  • Heroic Star Fortresses will get a new moniker to denote that it’s a different type of challenge. And we will balance Star Fortresses independently of both Companion power and [Heroic 2]s to ensure they are tuned appropriately.

 

Thank you for reading and we look forward to more of your feedback as these changes go live.

 

May the Force be with you,

Michael Backus

Lead Designer

Edited by EricMusco
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Are there any plans to adjust how presence and/or influence scales? It seems like making influence more prominent should give players more freedom to choose how powerful their companions are.

 

These changes look fantastic, and I'm really happy to see the DPS and tank specs being increased. I mostly run with companions in DPS stance and seeing their output was pretty disheartening. Even with a 15% increase in base stats, they'll still only be doing 65% of what my character puts out instead of 50%. Maybe getting them up to influence 50 they'll be beating my healer and almost on par with my DPS characters. Maybe not.

 

Either way, thanks for listening to community feedback and I think you're exactly right in your assessment of how people are playing the game and what their expectations are. I can't speak for everyone but I know that's true for me and my friends/family who I play with.

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As a result, we are going to change the “Heroic” nomenclature for Star Fortresses to something different. We’ll let you know what we decide the new name will be soon.

Not sure if that's a good idea, "Heroic" is a term used in many MMOs to designate more difficult content. If you only use it for the planetary heroics (which are now supposed to be the repeatable content for solo players), then it will cause confusion - especially since the Heroics are by your defition not supposed to be difficult.

I also find the "Heroic 2" term misleading. If you intent it to be solo content, remove the 2 and just call them "Heroic" or "Weekly" or something else.

 

Difficulty-wise, I didn't mind the too easy companions in 4.0 and I didn't mind the changes post-4.0.2 but I'd also consider myself a skilled players. The middle ground coming with the next patch should be a good compromise for all players but I'd have to see it myself to know for sure.

Edited by Jerba
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So it ends up a 35% reduction in power where a lot of us said it should be... Wow....

 

As for Star Fortress, why not call it Tactical 2. That would fit with the desired goal for naming I think. Good players could solo (even on level) Cerka FPs when they were Tactical 2. Just a thought...

 

EDIT: For clarity, we know Tactical means group content. We've been raised that way so to speak.

 

EDIT 2: Also on this point, you could always retune it later for more "content" and make a HM4 person version for it as well.... Plus saying Tactical 2 allows you a new in between from solo to full 4 tactical FPs.

Edited by Psychopyro
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Thanks for the clarity. Some questions though.

 

1. How did the wildly overpowered companions make it out of internal/QA testing and to live in the state they were in? Did nobody catch on to their ludicrous power levels and flag it as a potential issue that could impact player behavior and gameplay? Did you not foresee players avoiding grouping for H2+ content and just soloing it with their overpowered companions.

 

2. When are tank companions getting their proper fix? IIRC they still are missing shielding/defensive stats and I know mine still has a hell of a time trying to hold threat off me from healing aggro alone. With what you've outlined, it feels like healing will be the "default" mode for companions since it will likely be far stronger/more useful than either tank or dps modes.

 

And "emergent"? Really, that's hard for me to read you call players soloing H2+ content as "emergent", especially when you created the situation for it to happen (overpowered companions) and made the content itself a central part of the post-story gameplay. Sounds silly.

Edited by Satsuke
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15% damage seems low, my healer does more damage than my influence 38 companion in DPS mode at the minute.

 

Making heroic star fortresses whatever you want them to be is fine, but you shouldnt be putting the things into peoples mission logs and gating companions behind it if they are end game stuff.

 

This is basic game design here, you dont go from easy content and direct people straight to the hardest stuff in the game to do outside of the big group content. Solo mode should be where it stops for the story, the heroic version should be about gear and achievements. (It only drops 208 gear remember)

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You gotta really appreciate when someone is willing to start off with an introduction follow by:

" I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance."

You had me right there. I don't know if the changes are good or not, but at least you admit you guys did something that upset everyone and you apologized for doing it and you are going to attempt to fix it.

 

Thank you very much!

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Thank you, i will see tomorrow if its what i hope to see :D

 

But i am a little suprised that you did not see it coming that H2's would be done a lot. Afterall we need the reputation for the Alliances :rolleyes:

Edited by Azbaleth
Some extra info.
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The initial difficulty level for Star Fortresses are clearly story content, meaning, we expect all of you to take part and enjoy them while earning new Contacts. This hasn’t changed. The difficult mode for Star Fortresses, though, we feel is a challenge that players should aspire to achieve, and not something players should easily do without gearing up their character and increasing their Companion’s Influence level. We obviously set an expectation Heroic Star Fortresses were going to be similar to [Heroic 2] content, but that was not our intention. As a result, we are going to change the “Heroic” nomenclature for Star Fortresses to something different.

 

If this is the case, you need to put these in group finder. Don't force people to spam chat just to get those story quests done. You know, the alliance story? You remember that, right? Put it in group finder to save everyone some time and effort.

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You lost me forever. What a bunch of BS. You didn't expect people to play H2s, that's the daily content in 4.0. You designed it this way. You just lied to sidestep admitting you messed up.

 

Oh well it was fun. I'll probably check out the story on youtube but beyond that it's clear this isn't a game anymore, it's an interactive movie and that's not what I signed up for.

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Thankyou so much for taking the time to break this all down and explain it for us. I am really excited about the changes you have planned as I am someone who prefers to do content solo and I only team up with my friend when we are going to do H2's or Star Fortress. This makes getting all those companion quests done much more realistic for me now.

 

I know there has been a lot of ugly things said, but I hope this will satisfy MOST people (can never please everybody! lol)

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You gotta really appreciate when someone is willing to start off with an introduction follow by:

" I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance."

You had me right there. I don't know if the changes are good or not, but at least you admit you guys did something that upset everyone and you apologized for doing it and you are going to attempt to fix it.

 

Thank you very much!

I agree completely .

Edited by Death-Hammer
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/highfive to Mr. Bakkus. Now, I don't have a side in this little forum holy war you guys have going on, but I do wanna say that I am impressed at the quickness of the response and the great post straight from a dev. What kind of bums me out, in my opinion, is that it took a literal sht storm to bring about the awesome dev post. In my opinion this is what we should be seeing all the time from the community team and even some of the dev team maybe, once in awhile. I'm not just talking about keeping us appraised of everything including which intern is picking up lunch today, just nice interaction. Anyone remember lore weeks?

 

Anyway, on topic. I really hope this change will help and benefit the most number of people. As I can solo most stuff in game and raid for my challenge, the comp nerfs did not affect me, but it is a bummer to hear about so many no longer having fun. Maybe now we can end all the bickering, bloods and crips unite? :p

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You lost me forever. What a bunch of BS. You didn't expect people to play H2s, that's the daily content in 4.0. You designed it this way. You just lied to sidestep admitting you messed up.

 

Oh well it was fun. I'll probably check out the story on youtube but beyond that it's clear this isn't a game anymore, it's an interactive movie and that's not what I signed up for.

 

They're buffing healer companions enough so that they, y'know, actually do their job. As it stands right now a dedicated healing companion isn't even 1/5 as good as a player. By the sound of it they'll end up being about half as good as a player by the time they're done balancing them. How, exactly, is that an issue for you? Or are you with that crowd who thinks that a damage spec should be outhealing their healing companion?

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You gotta really appreciate when someone is willing to start off with an introduction follow by:

" I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the recent Companion changes and address combat balance."

You had me right there. I don't know if the changes are good or not, but at least you admit you guys did something that upset everyone and you apologized for doing it and you are going to attempt to fix it.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Totally agree! I wish he posted more often :)

I look forward to testing the changes!

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You didn't expect people to play H2s, that's the daily content in 4.0. You designed it this way. You just lied to sidestep admitting you messed up.

 

Yeah, I laughed in the office when I read that. Like, for reals, that's the mainstay of post chapter 9 content in the game right now. What were they expecting people to do instead of clearing that out every week to grind alliance rep?

 

If they were caught that unawares, then there are far bigger problems of incompetence along the lines of "We expected people to take 3 months or more to hit level 50 at launch and were blown away people managed it in a matter of days/weeks!"

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Hello Micheal,

First I would like to say that I appreciate your time out of your busy schedule to address the concern about the nerfing of the companions and while I think all of us understand why you did it because of the Heriocs 2+ I am glad to see that you guys didn't take the game aspect into consideration as the storyline is concerned. That takes a good person to admit that mistake and while I am okay with the idea that our companions will get a 48% raise in healing there is one thing that concerns me. As I posted before in the feedback I noticed Lana heals better than my choice companion Theron. Lana is at a lvl 10 influence and Theron is 27 or 28 the last I looked. That concerns me quite a bit that a lower influenced companion out ranks a higher influenced companion. How do you plan to address this issue?

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