"Nah, we can two man this one with our companions, let's not take little *insert your name here*. More loot for the both of us".
"OMG you pulled another ad! Replacing you with a companion now. *group kick*"
V_V
Not so happy about that decision. It is kinda anti social for such a group focussed part of the game to allow companion substitutes. Also I am curious about whether this will effect dungeon difficulty; making them too easy for a full player group would be a bad idea, imo.
It would be nice if picking a companion would at least be a suitably bad alternative to a player most of the times.
Even if companions can be used in flashpoints, it's not automatic that you'll be able to add them in the middle of one. You couldn't add heroes in the middle of a mission in Guild Wars, for example.
Companions will surely be weaker than players, and worse than most players. It's likely that you'd have to be really awful to manage to be worse than a companion. Some people will manage to be that awful, but some will also manage to be worse than leaving a group spot vacant entirely.
What makes you think that all loot is divided only among players? What makes you think that companions won't implicitly take their share of loot by having it seemingly not drop in the first place? That's what happened in Guild Wars.
-----
One perennial problem in many MMORPGs is needing a particular role for a group, often a healer, and being unable to find someone to fill that role. So you have to take half an hour trying to get a group, or maybe spend that half an hour and then give up. If you could bring a companion to fill the last spot, surely it's better to let three people do the flashpoint with a companion than to let none of them do it for lack of a fourth member.
Companions aren't the only way to get around the difficulty of finding a suitable group. But it's critical that games do something. Many MMORPGs do nothing, but simply assume that players can magically find a group, and it largely kills grouping in the game as a result. Indeed, that more than anything else is what has driven the trend toward soloing.
"Nah, we can two man this one with our companions, let's not take little *insert your name here*. More loot for the both of us".
"OMG you pulled another ad! Replacing you with a companion now. *group kick*"
V_V
Not so happy about that decision. It is kinda anti social for such a group focussed part of the game to allow companion substitutes. Also I am curious about whether this will effect dungeon difficulty; making them too easy for a full player group would be a bad idea, imo.
It would be nice if picking a companion would at least be a suitably bad alternative to a player most of the times.
Even if companions can be used in flashpoints, it's not automatic that you'll be able to add them in the middle of one. You couldn't add heroes in the middle of a mission in Guild Wars, for example.
Companions will surely be weaker than players, and worse than most players. It's likely that you'd have to be really awful to manage to be worse than a companion. Some people will manage to be that awful, but some will also manage to be worse than leaving a group spot vacant entirely.
What makes you think that all loot is divided only among players? What makes you think that companions won't implicitly take their share of loot by having it seemingly not drop in the first place? That's what happened in Guild Wars.
-----
One perennial problem in many MMORPGs is needing a particular role for a group, often a healer, and being unable to find someone to fill that role. So you have to take half an hour trying to get a group, or maybe spend that half an hour and then give up. If you could bring a companion to fill the last spot, surely it's better to let three people do the flashpoint with a companion than to let none of them do it for lack of a fourth member.
Companions aren't the only way to get around the difficulty of finding a suitable group. But it's critical that games do something. Many MMORPGs do nothing, but simply assume that players can magically find a group, and it largely kills grouping in the game as a result. Indeed, that more than anything else is what has driven the trend toward soloing.
Good post here. The only thing I would add to this would be to remind people that players are only allowed a single companion, and if they are requiring 4 players total including players and companions, that means the minimum group required would be 2 players and 2 companions. You can't have one player and 3 companions. I would also imaging companions would be a pretty poor choice to fill 2 slots (especially if they were important slots like a healer, tank, or control).
While 2 players with 2 companions could be possible, with enough determination, I doubt most players will opt for that kind of setup when they get closer to end game.
To those who replied to my post; thanks. I realize there are big postives to the system as well and I am pretty much relieved by the dev feedback on this now:
"when Alex and I tried to two-man the Heroics on Dromund Kaas with our CCs we got stomped flat. And, you know, I’ve been playing this game a while"
That was exactly what I needed to hear about it
p.s. Really a shame that the swimming is not implemented yet. I'll hope they get to it before launch.
I realize they face challenges with a lot of the attacks in water: grenade launchers and flamethrowers wouldn't be so smart to use for instance, and lightning in water is generally a bad idea to be close to
Maybe they should add a harpoon like, stabbing weapon which everyone can use and switch of most of the other skills. This still needs extra animations but they would be pretty similar for all classes / races.
I always enjoyed exploring underwater and hidden bays, etc. in mmorpgs. Swimming being less important than core aspects of a mmorpg is NO excuse not to have it if you commit yourself to building a submersive *coughs* immersive *coughs* rich and inspiring gameworld.
Hopefully they will fix that asap. I understand it needs to be worked out but that is kinda a feature you need as well. Not a core feature mind you but a major one (at least to me) in the game. Something they should fix within the next month or so.
Not so huge problem since it really sucked in WoW Catalysm. Path finding sucked everytime there was stuff like ships. The AI aggro was highly annoying since you can't really see distances to mobs. Sure it was great first but in the end I was more frustrated than happy of water maps. Besides swimming with plasma cannons and high energy power packs, yeah try toaster in bathtub first .
You guys are killing me. I can't remember the last time anyone in my entire life of playing MMOS, roughly 10 years, at which they said, "Ahh, I love going 1/3 the speed of my run so that I can get to that one quest item at the bottom of the pond during which I run out of breath and nearly die so I can run back to my corpse and waste more time. This is great!! I'd rather do that all day than have fun actually engauging (<--I have no idea how to spell that) in a battle or creating things." I'm sure they will have scenery and things to emmerse (<--This either) you and such, but cmon I've hated water for the most part, but yes it always looks cool with the newer games because of how realistic it has become which is awesome. Getting into it is always just a drag though. My 2 cents :P Lata
Well, i have no problem with the absence of swimming at release but they should not make the fault Blizzard did with WoW and bring the evolution of the game to a stop but implement mechanics and deepen them over the course of its life and this includes underwater scenarios which naturally need the ability to move underwater (i.e. swim). As this is a Science Fiction game breathing is no problem, there will be a temporary piece of equipment for it or whatever else. Can Force Freaks hold breath for a long time or even breath underwater?
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Since you mentioned it, if you recall the episode one movie they had qui gon and obi won use an apparatus on their mouth to breathe underwater to go to jar-jar's home city, so I guess it's feasable.
Since you mentioned it, if you recall the episode one movie they had qui gon and obi won use an apparatus on their mouth to breathe underwater to go to jar-jar's home city, so I guess it's feasable.
I don't want to recall those moments . Anyway in Kotor there was whole planet with just ocean so it's possible we see some swimming in future. But that also has it own limit because having vast ocean is bit like having vast space, it's boring emptiness mostly and last thing I want is to spend hours just swimming aimlessly.
I completely disagree with this. An easy fix to not break the world designs is to add a fatigue system. You swim too far out, you become fatigued and must turn back. It's a wall to keep you from going too far, but at least it's not so rigid of a wall in not being able to swim at all.
There's no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.
In order for swimming to be actually worth the implementation and time, we'd want to do it right - meaning content built around it, maybe a water centric planet, etc. Absent that content - there are no water worlds in this game - we've decided to focus on other things that are more important to us.
I can definitely see why people like swimming (or any other feature for that matter), however, the decision to put a feature like that in the game cannot be solved with a simple yes/no poll. In reality, the question is more like “Do you want swimming or 'feature X'”. In this case, we chose feature X (or Y, or Z) for a number of reasons - one being that just adding a very basic version of swimming without building proper content around isn't something we wanted to focus on for launch.
We'll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it'd be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.
Everyone is posting in here like every zone in every world is going to have be populated by 100 foot deep lakes. So far I've only heard confirmation of 2-3 foot deep puddles and streams, nothing you wouldn't wade through anyway. Do you really think the devs would throw in a bunch of water without the proper tools to navigate it?
Leaving aside for a moment the issue that content designed for multiple players could now potentially done with NPCs in place of them , I guess I am curious how increasing the importance of a companion by giving it a full player slot reconciles with the comments about leaving the pass/fail up to the players, and not have the companion be a deciding factor?
Unless maybe it's a nomenclature thing between Flashpoints vs. Raids? When James spoke about it previously, did he literally mean raids and warzones, but NOT level-up Flashpoints?
Thanks as always for your participation here
Currently, it is feasible to complete some of the lower level Flashpoints with two players and two Companions, if the players are really good. Three players plus one companion is more common and works for most as it is easier, but still definitely a bunch more challenging than four players only.
As mentioned, we're actively testing different options here, and haven't made final calls on companions in Flashpoints.
Just to clarify a few things here, to avoid unnecessary panic attacks.
We put a lot of focus in SWTOR on making your character's journey mean something.
We're trying to eliminate grinding as much as possible, make your character's story matter and give you meaningful things to do on your way through the game.
We're also not shying away from rewarding or encouraging certain activities. The primary example, of course, being story. It's very hard to ignore, definitely not something we consider optional. It's hard to convey to people just how much impact it has on our game, but if you look at the feedback from all our recent events, people usually walk away surprised by just how powerful of an impact the feature has.
Exploration is another example. Exploration is an optional activity, but it is encouraged. If you choose to play just along the critical path, you can beat the game, have a good time, but you will find it is not necessarily the path of least resistance either:
Without exploring the world and stumbling on unique treasures, hidden quests, codex entries, the occasional world boss or encampment of rebels, you will be missing out not only on equipment rewards, XP, chances to further affection with your companion or build your alignment... but also you will deprive yourself of some very interesting stories
Datacrons are an exploration reward.
Yes, their effects are permanent, however they are also predetermined (there are X datacrons with exactly these effects, not randomized) so we can ensure they are balanced and luck has nothing to do with their effect. Their locations are fixed, not randomized and they don't 'spawn', meaning they will always be there for your character when you get to the location.
We're not talking about people having to find the 99 hidden flowers on each planet or something like that; the number of datacrons is small, scaling with the size of the planet. Think single digits. Not the kind of thing you would usually associate with grinding.
Do they matter? In the grand scheme of things, sure, they'll matter. How much? That depends what type of player you are. If you are in pursuit of the most optimized character ever, you will probably want to pick them up, but most people will probably do just fine with finding just a handful of them.
If you are not an explorer - no big deal - datacrons always stay accessible to you, so you can't lock yourself out of them and you can come back and pick them up later in the game when you have your comfy personal transport to get around in.
In short - we think it's a feature that adds to the game, that rewards going off the beaten path and discovering the wonders we put all over the worlds.
Comments
Even if companions can be used in flashpoints, it's not automatic that you'll be able to add them in the middle of one. You couldn't add heroes in the middle of a mission in Guild Wars, for example.
Companions will surely be weaker than players, and worse than most players. It's likely that you'd have to be really awful to manage to be worse than a companion. Some people will manage to be that awful, but some will also manage to be worse than leaving a group spot vacant entirely.
What makes you think that all loot is divided only among players? What makes you think that companions won't implicitly take their share of loot by having it seemingly not drop in the first place? That's what happened in Guild Wars.
-----
One perennial problem in many MMORPGs is needing a particular role for a group, often a healer, and being unable to find someone to fill that role. So you have to take half an hour trying to get a group, or maybe spend that half an hour and then give up. If you could bring a companion to fill the last spot, surely it's better to let three people do the flashpoint with a companion than to let none of them do it for lack of a fourth member.
Companions aren't the only way to get around the difficulty of finding a suitable group. But it's critical that games do something. Many MMORPGs do nothing, but simply assume that players can magically find a group, and it largely kills grouping in the game as a result. Indeed, that more than anything else is what has driven the trend toward soloing.
Good post here. The only thing I would add to this would be to remind people that players are only allowed a single companion, and if they are requiring 4 players total including players and companions, that means the minimum group required would be 2 players and 2 companions. You can't have one player and 3 companions. I would also imaging companions would be a pretty poor choice to fill 2 slots (especially if they were important slots like a healer, tank, or control).
While 2 players with 2 companions could be possible, with enough determination, I doubt most players will opt for that kind of setup when they get closer to end game.
To those who replied to my post; thanks. I realize there are big postives to the system as well and I am pretty much relieved by the dev feedback on this now:
"when Alex and I tried to two-man the Heroics on Dromund Kaas with our CCs we got stomped flat. And, you know, I’ve been playing this game a while"
That was exactly what I needed to hear about it
p.s. Really a shame that the swimming is not implemented yet. I'll hope they get to it before launch.
I realize they face challenges with a lot of the attacks in water: grenade launchers and flamethrowers wouldn't be so smart to use for instance, and lightning in water is generally a bad idea to be close to
Maybe they should add a harpoon like, stabbing weapon which everyone can use and switch of most of the other skills. This still needs extra animations but they would be pretty similar for all classes / races.
I always enjoyed exploring underwater and hidden bays, etc. in mmorpgs. Swimming being less important than core aspects of a mmorpg is NO excuse not to have it if you commit yourself to building a submersive *coughs* immersive *coughs* rich and inspiring gameworld.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Swimming I was a bit shocked that it wasn´t implemented , but atleast the explanation given is logical .
They don´t want imperfection at this moment and people complaining about how sad the animation look while swimming.
A bit like pets pre CATA that didn´t had swimming movement , how funny it was to me .
Some people get ticked off by those small details >.<
But truth is I don´t care at this moment for anything else but RELEASE DATE !!!!! *grumble grumble grr*
So there excuse it will be work on later stage after launch is good enough for me .
Not so huge problem since it really sucked in WoW Catalysm. Path finding sucked everytime there was stuff like ships. The AI aggro was highly annoying since you can't really see distances to mobs. Sure it was great first but in the end I was more frustrated than happy of water maps. Besides swimming with plasma cannons and high energy power packs, yeah try toaster in bathtub first
.
You guys are killing me. I can't remember the last time anyone in my entire life of playing MMOS, roughly 10 years, at which they said, "Ahh, I love going 1/3 the speed of my run so that I can get to that one quest item at the bottom of the pond during which I run out of breath and nearly die so I can run back to my corpse and waste more time. This is great!! I'd rather do that all day than have fun actually engauging (<--I have no idea how to spell that) in a battle or creating things." I'm sure they will have scenery and things to emmerse (<--This either) you and such, but cmon I've hated water for the most part, but yes it always looks cool with the newer games because of how realistic it has become which is awesome. Getting into it is always just a drag though. My 2 cents :P Lata
Well, i have no problem with the absence of swimming at release but they should not make the fault Blizzard did with WoW and bring the evolution of the game to a stop but implement mechanics and deepen them over the course of its life and this includes underwater scenarios which naturally need the ability to move underwater (i.e. swim).
As this is a Science Fiction game breathing is no problem, there will be a temporary piece of equipment for it or whatever else.
Can Force Freaks hold breath for a long time or even breath underwater?
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Since you mentioned it, if you recall the episode one movie they had qui gon and obi won use an apparatus on their mouth to breathe underwater to go to jar-jar's home city, so I guess it's feasable.
I don't want to recall those moments
. Anyway in Kotor there was whole planet with just ocean so it's possible we see some swimming in future. But that also has it own limit because having vast ocean is bit like having vast space, it's boring emptiness mostly and last thing I want is to spend hours just swimming aimlessly.
Georg zoeller on swimming:
GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Swimming in The Old Republic
Quote:
Originally Posted by GamewizX
I completely disagree with this. An easy fix to not break the world designs is to add a fatigue system. You swim too far out, you become fatigued and must turn back. It's a wall to keep you from going too far, but at least it's not so rigid of a wall in not being able to swim at all.
There's no rigid wall in the game at this point. You walk in shallow water, it becomes deeper as you progress, and at some point you start getting the message that you should turn back. You can continue on and ultimately drown (then respawn) or move back.
In order for swimming to be actually worth the implementation and time, we'd want to do it right - meaning content built around it, maybe a water centric planet, etc. Absent that content - there are no water worlds in this game - we've decided to focus on other things that are more important to us.
I can definitely see why people like swimming (or any other feature for that matter), however, the decision to put a feature like that in the game cannot be solved with a simple yes/no poll. In reality, the question is more like “Do you want swimming or 'feature X'”. In this case, we chose feature X (or Y, or Z) for a number of reasons - one being that just adding a very basic version of swimming without building proper content around isn't something we wanted to focus on for launch.
We'll definitely look at this again later, after launch, but if we were to decide to do it, it'd be accompanied with proper content and mechanics themed around it.
General Discussion -> Swimming in The Old Republic
Quote:
Originally Posted by leviboley
Everyone is posting in here like every zone in every world is going to have be populated by 100 foot deep lakes. So far I've only heard confirmation of 2-3 foot deep puddles and streams, nothing you wouldn't wade through anyway. Do you really think the devs would throw in a bunch of water without the proper tools to navigate it?
Amen
also georg zoeller on companions in flashpoints:
General Discussion -> Did You Play at the UK Community Event? Post Your Experiences Here!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lethality
Hi Georg,
Leaving aside for a moment the issue that content designed for multiple players could now potentially done with NPCs in place of them , I guess I am curious how increasing the importance of a companion by giving it a full player slot reconciles with the comments about leaving the pass/fail up to the players, and not have the companion be a deciding factor?
Unless maybe it's a nomenclature thing between Flashpoints vs. Raids? When James spoke about it previously, did he literally mean raids and warzones, but NOT level-up Flashpoints?
Thanks as always for your participation here
Currently, it is feasible to complete some of the lower level Flashpoints with two players and two Companions, if the players are really good. Three players plus one companion is more common and works for most as it is easier, but still definitely a bunch more challenging than four players only.
As mentioned, we're actively testing different options here, and haven't made final calls on companions in Flashpoints.
and Georg on datacrons:
General Discussion -> Datacrons the farming beginsJust to clarify a few things here, to avoid unnecessary panic attacks.
We put a lot of focus in SWTOR on making your character's journey mean something.
We're trying to eliminate grinding as much as possible, make your character's story matter and give you meaningful things to do on your way through the game.
We're also not shying away from rewarding or encouraging certain activities. The primary example, of course, being story. It's very hard to ignore, definitely not something we consider optional. It's hard to convey to people just how much impact it has on our game, but if you look at the feedback from all our recent events, people usually walk away surprised by just how powerful of an impact the feature has.
Exploration is another example. Exploration is an optional activity, but it is encouraged. If you choose to play just along the critical path, you can beat the game, have a good time, but you will find it is not necessarily the path of least resistance either:
Without exploring the world and stumbling on unique treasures, hidden quests, codex entries, the occasional world boss or encampment of rebels, you will be missing out not only on equipment rewards, XP, chances to further affection with your companion or build your alignment... but also you will deprive yourself of some very interesting stories
Datacrons are an exploration reward.
Yes, their effects are permanent, however they are also predetermined (there are X datacrons with exactly these effects, not randomized) so we can ensure they are balanced and luck has nothing to do with their effect. Their locations are fixed, not randomized and they don't 'spawn', meaning they will always be there for your character when you get to the location.
We're not talking about people having to find the 99 hidden flowers on each planet or something like that; the number of datacrons is small, scaling with the size of the planet. Think single digits. Not the kind of thing you would usually associate with grinding.
Do they matter? In the grand scheme of things, sure, they'll matter. How much? That depends what type of player you are. If you are in pursuit of the most optimized character ever, you will probably want to pick them up, but most people will probably do just fine with finding just a handful of them.
If you are not an explorer - no big deal - datacrons always stay accessible to you, so you can't lock yourself out of them and you can come back and pick them up later in the game when you have your comfy personal transport to get around in.
In short - we think it's a feature that adds to the game, that rewards going off the beaten path and discovering the wonders we put all over the worlds.